Managing innovation in high-tech: the case of Philips’ Wearable Sensing Technologies

On 10 April 2016, Giuseppe Coppola, General Manager of Philips Wearable Sensing Technologies gave an encouraging guest lecture at Maastricht School of Management about “How to build a business from scratch within a big company?” to the audience of the full-time and Executive MBA students.

Mr. Coppola took the audience through the process of the development of the Wearable Sensing Technology. This process started 8 years ago when he was instructed for the first time to come up with an innovation which also relates to the mission of Philips: “We strive to make the world healthier and more sustainable through innovation”.

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During his presentation Mr. Coppola described the process they went through in the last 8 years. In the first phase they came up with a solid foundation for the product describing what they wanted to achieve with the technology. In the second phase they developed the technology after which they brought the product to the market in phase three. After the successful implementation of the product on the market they are now working on creating a sustainable business. The guest lecture was a perfect match with the current MBA classes in Entrepreneurship.

After the guest lecture Mr. Coppola gave some useful tips to maximize the chances of success of a new venture. He said that the top three 3 factors you need are passion, persistence and you need to find partners. He also explained the top 3 balance rules for a new venture namely: balance the strategic vision and pragmatic approach, balance market-pull and technology-push and balance team-spirit and directive leadership.

After the guest lecture the students took the opportunity to ask questions.