Nowadays it's getting harder and harder for chemical companies to invest a lot into high risk innovation project. Reason No. 1 is it's long-term project at least 5-10 years from lab to manufacturing, No. 2 is the risk is high and no managers prefer to present a ppt report with only investment and no margins/returns in near future, No. 3 is commercialization requiring R&D, marketing, sales and plants to work together, marketing/sales persons do not like innovation or new product idea most of the time and usually they lead the process of new product launch. However, all of these obstacles could be overcome if the shareholders are aggressive to tolerate high risk or the CEO is fighting hard to pursue innovation, sadly it's rare to see.
Xue, I agree with you 100%. The more I do product development at different companies the more I realize many of their goals are the same. You will be well compensated to take a few percentage points of cost out of an existing product, but the moment you try and venture into developing something new and game changing you are told no.
I suspect and want the next 10-20 years to be a golden age for investment into start-ups seeking to change chemicals and our economy.
Nowadays it's getting harder and harder for chemical companies to invest a lot into high risk innovation project. Reason No. 1 is it's long-term project at least 5-10 years from lab to manufacturing, No. 2 is the risk is high and no managers prefer to present a ppt report with only investment and no margins/returns in near future, No. 3 is commercialization requiring R&D, marketing, sales and plants to work together, marketing/sales persons do not like innovation or new product idea most of the time and usually they lead the process of new product launch. However, all of these obstacles could be overcome if the shareholders are aggressive to tolerate high risk or the CEO is fighting hard to pursue innovation, sadly it's rare to see.
Xue, I agree with you 100%. The more I do product development at different companies the more I realize many of their goals are the same. You will be well compensated to take a few percentage points of cost out of an existing product, but the moment you try and venture into developing something new and game changing you are told no.
I suspect and want the next 10-20 years to be a golden age for investment into start-ups seeking to change chemicals and our economy.