IFF creates new global director of Innovation for Fragrance Division

ChemWeek reported today that Judith Gross of IFF was named to Global Director, Fragrance Innovation.  The press release mentions a couple of interesting things.  For one, she will have a dedicated team focused on new alliances and partnerships, and secondly the press release notes how innovation is becoming increasingly important in their marketplace.

Slowly, but surely you see the trend of more and more titles containing Innovation.  It is a trend that spans industries, and it is definitely happening in the chemical industry.

So what?  Who cares?

It is more proof of the industry returning its focus to innovation as a source of growth.

But, is your information technology ready to support it?

Innovation takes on many definitions.  For some it means R&D breakthroughs.  For others, it means process or service breakthroughs, or even applying existing technology to solve different problems.

Whatever your approach, information technology plays an increasingly important role in your success.

Today's teams are spread out globally, and chemical companies continue to create partnerships and alliances to jointly develop intellectual property.

Getting work done effectively in this environment requires more sophisticated tools.  Tools that allow you to communicate and collaborate with other people on information.  Tools that help you build corporate knowledge, and tools that help you manage the process.  And these tools must do so while preserving the high standards of compliance and security as you make them available around the world and outside the organization to trusted partners.

I have blogged previously about some of the case studies we have in this area.  The key to success is having the right IT infrastructure in place to enable secure collaboration, and then providing the tools in a thoughtful way that enable and foster the level of collaboration and process management needed to thrive in this environment.