Few corporations can be considered firmly entrenched in Enterprise Innovation. However, we have had the opportunity to play a role in the Innovation Journey of Procter & Gamble over the years. To us, they are the avant-garde corporate innovators that provide a model for how corporations can and should make this Corporate Innovation Journey.
The Inkjet Business Unit (IJBU) was faced with a positive, but daunting, challenge—to keep up with the tremendous growth prospects in the market and maintain their dominant market position in a competitively charged environment. Dana Seccomb, general manager of IJBU at that time, recalled the challenge of moving a 10,000-employee company in one focused, strategic direction amidst the chaos of phenomenal growth. At one point, his management team had received fifty-six different proposals from the various functional groups on what needed to be done to grow the business.
We journeyed to a country rich in natural resources, with valuable deposits of many precious metals hidden underground. Specialty Products (not its real name) is a large consumer products company that also had hidden assets. Deep within their nearly 1,000 employees was a capability for creativity and innovation that was not being used to its potential. While the company had been a family-owned jewel for many generations, the family believed it was capable of more.
The PDMA is a global organization dedicated to innovation. When we first met the board of the PDMA they were a large, splintered group made up of corporate product development professionals and academics in search of alignment on their future. After we led them through an exploration of their future opportunities, they selected several strategic frontiers for consideration, including a focus on innovation and desire for globalization.
3M’s challenge was to raise the bar for innovation. They were experts at incremental innovation and incremental growth, yet what they wanted was not incremental growth, but breakthrough. 3M approached us and Bill Coyne, Chief Technology Officer, retained us to move the Pacing Program to Pacing Plus, and design the architecture for the Pacing Plus process.