Getting ideas across

‘The way of working in the chemical industry is changing very, very fast,’ says Jonathan Wylde, head of global innovation at Clariant Oil and Mining Services. And so is the pace of innovation. ‘It’s about speed and execution,’ he adds. ‘If you look at sustainability, for example, we literally can’t keep up as an industry. The goalposts are moving so fast with respect to what it means for a product to be ‘green’ or sustainable.’

’We need to innovate in a different way – faster, and with fewer mistakes.’ Wylde suggests that this requires a combination of structure and culture. ‘I’m not the first to say it, but when we talk about innovation, we’re basically in the business of one thing, and that’s failing. When you stop failing, that’s when you’ve innovated. So, in the commercial world, our structure and processes focus on failing in two ways – quickly and cheaply.’