Innovation is a relay race: : How Bekaert embraces opportunity and uncertainty to fuel innovation

Ward Snoeck:  I would say Bekaert has always been an innovative company, but that isn’t because of one, singular breakthrough. Instead, it has to do with our ability to find new routes into reinventing ourselves. This goes all the way back to our very foundation, which was based on an idea that was simple, yet powerful. Farmers needed a way to keep cattle in their fields, and Leo Leander Bekaert saw a better way to solve this issue. Bekaert started a small business in barbed wire by putting crowns in twisted wire. While he didn’t invent barbed wire, he was able to design his own barbs, which were much more effective: star-shaped “crowns” with six sharp points that can be woven into the wire.

Finding ways to combine the practicality of problem-solving with industrialization is still key to how we innovate today. Over time, we’ve adapted to the world around us. For example, growth in transportation following World War II created new opportunities for us to respond to with innovations like tire reinforcement; expanding infrastructure spurred the development of steel fibers for concrete reinforcement; rising consumption led to a wide range of steel wire–based applications, such as champagne cork wire. And as the world started to shift towards energy transition, we brought products such as sawing wire to the market.

That same kind of transformation continues today, with changes in areas like deglobalization, urbanization, circularity, sustainability, electrifying energy, and connectivity. 

Bekaert is evolving again in response to these changes, developing solutions in sustainable construction, electricity grids, and offshore infrastructure. To meet the market needs in these new focus markets, we’re also expanding beyond steel into, for example, synthetic materials, alongside titanium, copper, and aluminum. This list is not exhaustive as, in the future, other materials might also be required. So innovation at Bekaert is really all about this continuous process of adaptation and evolution. It’s about understanding where the world is going and positioning ourselves to be a part of that future.

WS: This number might actually surprise you, but I’m not exaggerating when I share it. The reality is that about 80% of innovation projects fail. If you start with 1,000 ideas, maybe 100 of those are promising enough to discuss seriously, whether they’re coming to you as early concepts, technical explorations, or napkin drawings. Out of those 100, maybe 10 will actually become structured projects for R&D to explore. And from there, success may only look like one or two of those projects will achieve scale in their market. 

Those numbers aren’t unique to Bekaert, either; it’s just the nature of trying to do something today that will be relevant in the future.. Many ideas get brought to the table through internal collaboration as well as conversations with our partners and customers. We evaluate each of them based on its alignment with our strategy, the potential for impact, and overall feasibility. But the truth is that most will drop out at some stage. This is why I think innovation isn’t about finding a single winning idea, but maintaining a steady stream of new concepts to explore.  
 
Innovation is not a straight line. It’s a long, winding road with more dead ends than exits. But when you finally get it right — when that one product out of a thousand ideas makes it — it can change everything. At Bekaert, we don’t just accept this reality. We build for it, invest in it, and ultimately endure it. Because we know that if you want to shape the future, you have to prepare for it, while be willing to wait for it.

Take Currento®, our titanium electrode to separate H2O in H2 and O2. What’s interesting is that the first tests for Currento® date back to 1998. But it took more than 20 years for the market to catch up and for green hydrogen to become relevant. Only after 2020 did demand accelerate and that product started to gain real commercial traction. That’s two decades of persistence: prototyping, setbacks, redesigns, maturing the product along with our customers requirements. And that’s what innovation really looks like. You start with a vision of where the world is going, but you don’t control when that future arrives. Sometimes it takes 20 years.

We’ve seen the same pattern with other innovations like Dramix® or tire cord. These solutions didn’t succeed overnight. Like Currento®, they needed time to be understood, adopted, adapted, and scaled. Those are just a few of the reasons why resilience and long-term commitment are such important parts of Bekaert’s innovation process.

WS: Success depends both on factors that you can control and those you can’t. You need to have the right foundation, with things like consistent strategic direction, skilled teams, a culture of curiosity, and an effective process with sufficient staged funding. But even when everything is under control there, uncontrollable factors are often the decisive trigger, since market readiness can often make or break whether you’re successful.

When it comes to what can make an innovation project succeed or fail, it often has to do with the fact that markets are always evolving. Something that looks promising today could be replaced by a much more efficient alternative tomorrow. This is one of the reasons that a long-term vision is so important, like the earlier example of Currento®. You need to innovate not only for today or tomorrow, but also for the day after tomorrow. 

WS: No, it doesn’t. Reaching the market is an important milestone, but it’s not the end of the journey. It can take many years for an innovation to be fully adopted and scaled to become a meaningful business pillar. At the same time, intellectual property protections like patents have a limited lifespan, typically around 20 years. So you can end up in a situation where an innovation reaches its full potential just as its protection is expiring. 
 
From a company perspective, this means you always need to have the next innovation in development. You cannot rely on a single success. Instead, it’s important to have a continuous pipeline so that you’re able to ensure long-term competitiveness. At Bekaert, this is why we invest heavily in intellectual property and maintain a strong portfolio of projects at different stages of development.

WS: As I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t ever come down to a single individual. Innovation is always a collective effort. This is why I describe it as a “relay race,” because it involves multiple stakeholders, each with important contributions at different stages of development.

A first type of relay runs through the value chain, where new ideas emerge and take shape. Innovation here is inherently collaborative, involving suppliers, customers, manufacturers, and other partners. As a B2B company, our innovations often only scale once our customers have successfully completed their own innovation journey. A second relay is driven by people. Some stakeholders act as pioneers, introducing ideas early and setting change in motion. Others take over later, ensuring the baton keeps moving when the conditions are right. While some innovators generate the original ideas, they are not necessarily the ones who industrialize them or bring them to market. The final relay is funding. New ideas are typically first financed by the ideator’s close network. From there, the baton is passed to prototype or concept funding, followed by development budgets and, eventually, CAPEX investments.

As you can see, in the end, innovation is always a joint effort.

WS: Our “recipe for success” when it comes to innovation is built on recognizing and embracing the complexity of everything I’ve outlined above. We build strong, multidisciplinary teams who are able to tackle challenges from a variety of angles. We also keep a pulse on the market, leveraging continuous dialogue with our customers—who are at the center of all our innovation projects-and partners to be able to understand and anticipate their needs. 

At the end of the day, innovation isn’t about a single idea or person. Rather, it’s about building a disciplined system that allows innovation to endure, evolve, and continue over time.