Combine Innovation
we are constantly innovating how we innovate. We keep refining our product-launch model — from idea to prototype, to development, to qualification, to commercialization. Applying this sequential practice on a large scale, and making it replicable, does not mean eliminating judgment. In fact, there’s still a fair amount of judgment that’s applied along the way. That’s why we need active leaders and a strong innovation culture.
Scalability is critical at a company the size of Procter & Gamble. If we can’t scale our processes, they don’t have much value for us. In fact, scalability is often the justification for our existence as a multinational, diversified company. Our innovation practices are thus designed for deliberate learning, across all our functions, product categories, and geographic locations. Once people understand a particular process, they can replicate it and train others. It soon becomes a part of normal decision making.
P&G had not treated innovation as scalable in the past. We had always invested a great deal in research and development. When I became CEO, we had about 8,000 R&D people and roughly 4,000 engineers, all working on innovation. But we had not integrated these innovation programs with our business strategy, planning, or budgeting process well enough. At least 85 percent of the people in our organization thought they weren’t working on innovation. They were somewhere else: in line management, marketing, operations, sales, or administration. We had to redefine our social system to get everybody into the innovation game.
Today, all P&G employees are expected to understand the role they play in innovation. Even when you’re operating, you’re always innovating — you’re making the cycles shorter, or developing new commercial ideas, or working on new business models. And all innovation is connected to the business strategy.
In fostering this approach and building the social system to support it, the...