If you want to be on the cutting edge of the latest industry trends and insights for your company’s strategic partnerships, here’s a conference you won’t want to miss this year. I’m chairing the 8th Annual MRT/PDMA International Congress on Open Innovation and Co-Development (Also known as CoDev 09!)

This year’s program will be held January 26 - 28, 2009 in Scottsdale, AZ at the Radisson Fort McDowell Resort.

We’re focusing on how to build the core components of a successful open innovation capability, and we’ve already lined up a compelling faculty with open innovation ambassadors from Cadbury, Frito-Lay, HP, Booz & Company, Kraft, P&G, R.J. Reynolds, Colgate, WD-40 and many more.

I’m very excited to kick off the conference with a candid one-to-one interview with Henry Chesbrough, author of Open Innovation and Open Business Models and acclaimed thought leader on Open Innovation – we’ll find out his perspectives on how companies can take their open innovation activities to the next level, how early adopters have excelled and discover the key ingredients of their success!

We’re also building in more time for attendees to connect with conference faculty, top experts and attendees of the event to ensure that you’re able to make networking connections for future discussions and possible partnership opportunities. We’ll even have an open innovation mentoring program to bring you up to speed quickly and ensure that you leave the conference with an action plan for getting started on the right path.

I highly encourage you to join us for what promises to be another exceptional program!

My congrats to Kimberly-Clark for winning the coveted 2008 Visionary Award for SpaSensials, a fantastic innovative product!

SpaSensials was one of six finalists at the VISION 2008 Consumer Products Conference, organized by INDA, Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry. I was honored to champion this innovation while I worked at Kimberly-Clark, and am proud of the entire SpaSensials team for its great work!

If you’re not familiar with SpaSensials, click here to learn more about this amazing at-home spa treatment consisting of intensive moisturizing and conditioning socks and gloves.

It’s a product geared toward women who love the softness of a spa manicure and pedicure, without the salon prices. Advanced technology helps the intensive conditioning formula in SpaSensials products to quickly and effectively absorb into the skin. The nonwoven material keeps moisturizers on the inside, next to the skin.

Kimberly-Clark had some tough competition, and there were some great new innovative consumer products in the contest. The other five finalists were:

1. Curity Brand Nursing Pad, Covidien
(formerly Tyco Healthcare Retail Group) redesigned its nursing pad into a three-dimensional lemon shape that provides a more discreet fit.

It has a thinner fluff pulp/SAP core for improved dryness and comfort as well as a tissue layer on the top and bottom to better contain the core.

2. Do-Rite Disposable Dog Diapers, Do-Rites
Do-Rites are nonwoven disposable diaper/garments that are fashionable and also provide the protection of a disposable diaper, without looking like one.

3. PowerTex Glass Cleaner, Ecolab
With applications in both consumer and institutional products, this system offers an environmentally responsible spray bottle cleaning system that uses a chemically impregnated nonwoven “sleeve,” a trigger sprayer with a specially designed dip tube system and a bottle.

4. OMop Dry Sweeper Cloths, Method Products
The OMop Dry Sweeper Cloths are disposable dry sweeper cloths made from 100% PLA (Poly-Lactic Acid), a plastic derived from corn, and are designed to be used on a custom sweeping tool.

5. Consumer Shopping Bags, Reliance Industries (India)
These reusable shopping bags are made of reverse printed and laminated BOPP film on a polypropylene nonwoven and are designed to replace conventional paper bags and cotton cloth bags in the grocery and retail market.

The very nature of innovation demands all those involved to constantly be on the look out for the next big thing. But how do you identify it? How do you know it’s not just a fad? How can you ensure that innovation is at the heart of your corporate values?

Those are some of the questions I’ll be answering in a few days when I present at the Indira India Summit in Mumbai. The Indira India Innovation Summit is presented by the Indira College of Engineering and Management (ICEM), Pune.

ICEM has one of the finest infrastructures in the region, with the residential campus spread over 20 acres and comprising of modern hi-tech laboratories in a wi-fi computing environment. The learning philosophy of ICEM has a strong emphasis on application oriented learning, with an attempt to inculcate innovative thinking among the aspiring engineers of tomorrow.

The Indira India Innovation Summit exposes academia to the world’s leading-edge innovation practices and to create a platform for intellectual exchange of ideas, which would drive future innovation in Industry.
My topic is about fostering and promoting a culture of innovation to drive revenue and growth. Companies want to know how to deliver high impact, sustained innovation that successfully capitalizes on new markets and consumer expectations. I’m very excited to share the principles that cutting-edge leaders use to develop a culture of innovation.

I’ll also be focusing on another favorite area of mine: how to develop an Open Innovation platform for knowledge-sharing. India is one of those nations whose business leaders have a lot of great ideas for partnerships, and there is so much potential for future collaboration that global corporations haven’t yet tapped.

IT outsourcing analysts have made big predictions for 2008 in the IT service market.

Experts expect the Indian rupee to continue its rise, keeping global IT service providers and customers on edge. Industry consolidation will continue. And as I’ve blogged recently, the offshore outsourcing market will continue to develop in India and beyond.
But will IT service providers figure out a way to provide more of the innovation their clients crave? Here are some top IT predictions from CIO magazine. (Click here if you’d like to peruse its pages—it’s a great resource!)

The Dollar

The continued decline of the dollar could be difficult for service providers to absorb. If the currency gap widens next year, expect Indian outsourcing providers to start indexing their prices to local salaries, promoting other offshore locations like China and Latin America, delay hiring of new staff, and building currency hedges into contracts.

Consolidation

The industry’s leading providers will gobble up smaller competitors in 2008. Tier-2 providers like ACS, Perot Systems and others have struggled, and as a result will become acquisition targets for larger providers or private equity firms. U.S.-based providers may be more likely to acquire midsize providers than their offshore brethren. Indian IT service providers, however, will continue to set up local delivery service centers in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. Likewise, American and European service providers will continue expanding their offshore presence to remain price competitive.

Politics

Large companies will most likely avoid announcing substantial agreements or employee reductions during 2008. The result could be a backlog of unsigned agreements pushing into 2009, which could put customers in the driver’s seat during negotiations during this election year.

Looking Beyond India

While India will remain the market leader in offshore IT services, clients are looking outside the subcontinent for alternatives. Thus, 2008 will be the biggest year to date of expansion of IT service delivery capabilities beyond India. As I’ve said before, think Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, China, and to a lesser degree, the Middle East and Africa.

Flight from the Big Cities

In India and beyond, outsourcing hot spots have become oversaturated, so many providers and customers are looking to set up shop elsewhere. A shortage of talent is emerging in the top cities across India, local universities are no longer providing an adequate number of qualified candidates, and recent tier-1 city grads are increasingly wary of starting at the bottom on the graveyard shift because they’ve got other options. That’s creating movement into smaller, less saturated cities.
The same story is occurring in dozens of outsourcing hot spots around the world.
As a result some IT service providers are jumping to second-tier cities in an attempt to sidestep the rush to set up shop in a major metropolis.

Transformation

Customers want more than cost savings. They want access to great talent, vertical expertise, process maturity, flexibility, the great and powerful “value add.” IT buyers want an outsourcing provider who can actually enhance the client’s revenues and not just their own.
That means IT service buyers can expect to spend more on outsourcing services in 2008 while deciphering which market changes warrant the upcharges and which don’t.

Call Center Culture

Clients are demanding improvement in the call center turnover rate. One industry provider reports that it loses half its staff during the first 100 days of work. Providers are beginning to respond to the sweatshop mentality of call centers, by creating more “client-centric” solutions, such as unique scripts and efforts to connect employees to the client’s corporate culture.

Green IT

The “Green” IT service trend will take root and become measurable and attainable in 2008, as outsourcing providers desire to decrease their carbon footprints by creating greener data centers, investing in environmentally friendlier buildings and campuses, and developing eco-friendly processes and policies.

Outsourcing Buyers Get Smart

In 2008, many outsourcing customers will be entering third and fourth generation outsourcing contracts—either renewing, rebidding or restructuring their deals. Many of those IT organizations are making smarter decisions, negotiating better terms, demanding better business-driven metrics and getting better at outsourcing lifecycle management.

I predict there will be plenty of new entrants to the outsourcing market this year to challenge the veterans and create their own innovative structures.

Here’s a great example of how Open Innovation partnerships deliver new opportunities for success. Avon Products, Inc. has teamed up with award-winning television host and best-selling author with Suze Orman. The renowned personal finance expert will serve as a Special Personal Finance Advisor to the company’s sales reps, offering them money management advice and strategies for success.

What a creative way to stimulate Avon’s corporate culture!

As part of the partnership, the company has created an “Ask Suze” mailbox feature on its intranet site so Avon reps and employees can submit personal questions to Orman for individualized advice and guidance. Critical financial management tools will also be provided to determine FICO scores, create a will and trust, evaluate insurance and guard against identity theft.

Orman will also be featured at key events, webinars and taped webcasts, which speaks to the needs of today’s tech-savvy “Alpha Mom.” (If you haven’t read any of my previous posts on this subject, click here and here to read up on who Alpha Mom is and how advertising gurus are cashing in on this key marketing segment.)

The partnership is the first of its kind in the direct selling industry, and was formed to advance Orman’s and Avon’s shared missions to provide financial empowerment to women–in this case, 500,000 Avon representatives in the U.S., and eventually to representatives around the world.

Avon had conducted a worldwide opinion poll of women in 16 countries in early 2007, and the findings overwhelmingly showed that worries about money were at the top of the list of women’s concerns. “Having enough money to live right and pay the bills” was cited by women as the number-one factor that would change their lives for the better.