New Business Ideation and R&D Transformation Through Generative AI Utilization that Overcomes the Experience Barrier

In the research and development (R&D) domain, we embedded the tacit knowledge of experienced researchers into generative AI, enabling early-career researchers to generate ideas that go beyond years of accumulated experience. By establishing a scalable and reproducible framework, this approach was rolled out across all R&D departments.

Talent Development & Culture Building
Business Process Reform (BPR)
Business Transformation & Innovation
Chemical Manufacturer

New Business Ideation and R&D Transformation Through Generative AI Utilization that Overcomes the Experience Barrier

ISSUE
- The organization was heavily dependent on industry-specific knowledge, experience, and networks, creating a structure in which early-career employees struggled to play an active role in new business creation.
- Innovation was hindered by rigid, entrenched assumptions among experienced staff, as well as frequent duplication of proposals caused by insufficient knowledge sharing.
SOLUTION
- Assembled a cross-functional expert team combining business unit leaders and generative AI specialists to design a ‘domain expansion ideation’ project aimed at identifying adjacent opportunities around existing businesses.
- Implemented thinking processes, including the elimination of erroneous answers (hallucinations), marketability assessment, and deduplication, into prompts and developed them as reproducible models
RESULT
- The initiative generated high-quality ideas that even experienced staff had not previously considered, successfully breaking through experience-based barriers and entrenched assumptions.
- Established an ideation model and began horizontal deployment across all internal research departments and consideration of cross-selling

ISSUE

Experience Barrier and Veteran Staff Preconceptions in R&D

A major materials and chemical manufacturer faced structural challenges that made it difficult for early-career employees to play an active role in new business development, given an industry environment that places strong emphasis on knowledge, experience, and professional networks.
At the same time, even highly experienced staff struggled to generate innovative ideas, constrained by entrenched assumptions rooted in past experience and by repeated, overlapping proposals resulting from insufficient knowledge sharing. As a result, the company needed a new approach that could overcome experience-based barriers and increase the likelihood of success in new business creation.
SOLUTION

Domain Expansion Ideation and Prompt Standardization by an Expert Team

We assembled an expert team combining business unit specialists from technology and sales with generative AI experts, and designed a ‘Domain Expansion Ideation’ project to identify adjacent opportunities around existing businesses.
The thinking processes of experienced professionals were formalized and embedded into prompts, incorporating filtering mechanisms such as hallucination prevention, market viability assessment, and duplication elimination. By structuring these elements into a scalable and reproducible framework, we enabled even early-career employees to consistently generate high-quality ideas.
RESULT

Idea Generation Beyond One's Years of Experience and Company-Wide Deployment

Even within a short series of sessions, the initiative generated a large number of high-quality ideas that seasoned professionals with decades of experience had never considered, demonstrating that generative AI can break through experience-based barriers and entrenched assumptions.
The established ideation framework is now being rolled out across all internal research divisions and is expected to serve as a company-wide innovation platform, including for initiatives such as cross-business and cross-domain opportunity exploration.