Set in 2022, this case describes the challenges faced by Singapore General Hospital (SGH), one of Singapore's leading public hospitals, in managing its bed occupancy rate (BOR) to best suit its patient workload pattern and adhere to the government's guidelines, and describes the evolution of its bed management system (BMS) in response to those challenges. Bed management, although a background activity, plays a central role in the effective running of a hospital. While SGH has adopted new technology and best practices in its BMS over the years, there are still frequent mismatches between the available bed supply and incoming patient demand. One of the reasons is Singapore's growing healthcare demand due to its ageing population coupled with a greater awareness of regular healthcare monitoring in the society, which requires capacity expansion. In addition, given that poor bed management in a hospital incurs heavy costs and adversely impacts everyone from patients to nursing staff, doctors and administrators, there is a need for more effective management of the existing bed supply and implementation of new measures to optimise the burden on hospitals. The Bed Management Unit (BMU) at SGH, recognises that the analysis of the workload of the hospital over the previous five years is critical for making many key decisions, such as capacity expansion and class configuration, patient-bed assignment protocols, and the adoption of innovative healthcare processes for effective bed management and healthcare delivery.
The case is set in July 2020, when Lynk Biotech (Lynk), a pharmaceutical research company based in Singapore is facing the dilemma of designing new products from its existing transdermal platform which is a well-researched proven technology developed by the company. Lynk was a university spin-off focused on drug research, and had pivoted its business model to come up with over-the-counter topical cream products for the market. The company had followed the research publication route to gain visibility for its technology innovation and the clinical trial route to use its proprietary technology to develop products and bring them to market. All along, the company had relied on Open Innovation methods to build collaboration with local educational institutions to publish its research and help conduct clinical trials. However, the company faced significant challenges in expanding its market outside Singapore, as its products required expensive clinical trials and faced regulatory challenges in most countries. In late 2019, a local research firm with ties to a renowned university in Singapore had approached Lynk to collaborate on using its proprietary technology for a new product that it was designing. While sharing its technology with appropriate licensing measures could be a plausible approach for the company to expand its outreach, were there other avenues that Lynk could explore to expand its business? Was partnering with research organisations the right way forward? Had the clinical trial method been the right way of embarking on its Open Innovation journey?
The case begins in January 2016. Alvin Chan, CEO of Neeuro, reflects on the company's three-year journey to bring their proprietary wearable technology EEG (electroencephalography) headband to market. The headband was meant for use alongside Neeuro's mobile applications to improve the brain health of users by reading and interpreting their brain signals. Chan and his co-founder Eddie Chau had long-standing connections and working relationships with government agencies and government-linked research institutes. Neeuro was a start-up, but through open innovation, they were able to access resources and technologies outside of their firm, and quickly build up their technical capacity. Chan forged a positive connection with A*STAR, the Singapore government-linked group of research institutes. Neeuro's co-founders leveraged their understanding of the surrounding ecosystem, and were able to navigate issues coming out of the scientific community and complex licensing and contracts. Neeuro received two technical capacity-building grants, embedding A*STAR researchers into the company to develop technology in-house and publish a White Paper detailing the scientific background of Neeuro's technology. They reached patent licensing agreements with A*STAR that boosted their product development cycle, and with the aid of A*STAR's scientists working with them, Neeuro enjoyed a smooth transfer of technology.
This case study is set in November 2021. It describes how Amanda Khoo, Director of Nipo International (Nipo), had been exploring ways to innovate and expand the company's core product that was bitumen-based coatings. Khoo had led Nipo to embark on its innovation journey for more than 20 years. In the last 10 years, Khoo had been collaborating with several research institutes in Singapore including the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore (NUS) on four innovation projects. After a multi-year journey of research and development (R&D), Nipo had a few promising products to show. However, these products were still undergoing field trials as at November 2021. The outlook for Nipo's focused industry - the construction industry, was predicted to be promising for the next 30 years. What should Khoo do to further drive innovation and commercialise the products?
This case is set in 2020 and talks about a start-up pharmaceutical marketing company - Good Pharma - based in Singapore. One of the first products the firm had embarked on marketing was Suu Balm, a cream for dry and eczema-prone skin, which had been formulated by a lead user - Dr Tey Hong Liang (Dr. Tey) from Singapore's renowned National Skin Centre (NSC). As a lead user innovation, Suu Balm had gone through extensive licensing negotiations before launch and took some time to see market success. The Suu Balm cream was a menthol based formulation to help relieve itch and dry skin conditions. Initially, the cream was sold online and to government and private dermatologists and general practitioners directly. Later the company approached retail pharmacy stores like Guardian and Watsons to distribute the product and saw spiralling sales growth at an average of 180% a year. The firm expanded beyond Singapore to other Asian countries, the U.K. and Ireland, by collaborating with both physical and online retail stores. However, it faced some hiccups in its collaborations with physical stores in Ireland and U.K. and quickly shrank its expansion in these countries after incurring some losses. Dr. Tey had also noted an increasing demand for additional products from his patient visits, which led to the expansion of the Suu Balm brand to include hair care, facial care, and products suitable for children. Effective product and geographical expansion strategies fuelled further business growth, and by 2019, Suu Balm's retail sales had exceeded US$3.69 million in its home market alone. However, Good Pharma wanted to expand beyond collaborations and launch its own products in the market moving forward. Could lead user innovation still be a viable strategy for Good Pharma's next growth stage as a start-up company?
This case is set in November 2020. Lao Hung Jia (LHJ) was a progressive chicken rice hawker stall that had embraced digital transformation and open innovation from e-retailing, e-payment, e-distribution to e-marketing. Even though these digital transformation initiatives had helped LHJ improve its customer service, productivity had remained an issue, especially when 50 percent of a hawker's work was spent on food preparation. CK Ng, the son of the founder of LHJ, reached out to the Food Innovation and Resource Centre (FIRC) at Singapore Polytechnic to conduct R&D to develop pre-mixed and pre-packaged sauces so that cooking chicken rice could be simplified. When the R&D at the FIRC was completed, Ng went to Sin Hwa Dee, a local sauce and paste manufacturer, to further develop and batch manufacture these three sauces, namely, the chicken stock, soya sauce and chilli sauce. Sin Hwa Dee was able to replicate the chicken stock and soya sauce, but it could not do so with the chilli sauce as the food retort production method used had altered the taste, colour and texture of the chilli sauce. Ng did not want LHJ to remain as a single chicken rice hawker stall. He had envisioned a LHJ franchise and dreamed about serving LHJ's chicken rice in vending machines or unmanned stalls so that more people in Singapore and abroad could savour the dish. But all these plans were dependent on getting the pre-mixed and pre-packaged chilli sauce right - without it, many Singaporeans would agree that the chicken rice was 'incomplete'. What should Ng do to make his dreams for LHJ a reality?