I'm doing a private conference call today with more than a hundred executives in the life sciences industry, on behalf of my client, SAP.

The theme, "Velocity, Agility, Complexity, and Flexibility: The Four Key Drivers for Competitive Advantage," drives directly from the key theme in my trends overview: Future Medicine: Prescriptions for 21st Century Health Care.

Together, the panel will discuss the challenges they face every business day in the high-velocity pharmaceutical industry, and how innovation plays a core role in how they approach to tackling the challenges and opportunities that exist. In the call, we'll talk to these executives as to what they have been doing within the pharmaceutical and health care industry to:

• Increase their agility and flexibility
  
• Forge innovative partnerships
  
• Achieve improved business visibility
  
• Pursue relentless customer-oriented innovation
  
• Establish forward-oriented leadership
  
• Leverage technology to meet your business objectives
  

Over the last few years, I've spent time with dozens of these types of panels with companies in every industry sector, and there is a huge amount of innovative insight that I've studied. In the case of today's panelists, they've discovered such unique areas for innovation in manufacturing/planning; streamlining the "chain of custody" process in manufacturing, and how they have provided for innovation in how they manage volume discounts. As one panelist noted, "we get a few big wins and a lot of small wins, but the small wins really add up!"

That's a key point about innovation: it isn't just about hitting home runs. You can be innovative as heck by hitting doubles, singles, and triples, and getting the runs in.

For further background, read Future Medicine: Prescriptions for 21st Century Health Care