1-Innovation

“Invention is just a new product or service. Innovation ties that idea to a better customer experience, and results in increased sales and profits. It lets you make unlikely connections that enable you to solve wickedly hard problems. It is a team sport that uses the expertise of people from a lot of different fields.” A.G. Lafley, CEO, Proctor & Gamble | New York Times, 24 May 2008

“P&G was always really good at branding and commercializing products, but we weren’t better than anyone else at that fragile front end, where the idea is created. So in 2000, we decided to stop being Fortress P&G, and move to an open innovation system that could attract innovations of all stripes from the outside. We set a goal, that half of the innovations we take to market should have external front-end partners. And [writing this] book can help us attract those partners.” A.G. Lafley, CEO, Proctor & Gamble | New York Times, 24 May 2008

“The first thing we did was open the internal innovation architecture. We worked on getting engineers and biochemists to work with marketing, and we got people from our different businesses to work with each other. Each of our businesses used to do its own research. But our core technologies span businesses. We can manipulate surfaces, for example, be they kitchen counters or blouses and hair”. A.G. Lafley, CEO, Proctor & Gamble | New York Times, 24 May 2008

“Human nature is such that, if we push our people to drive the batting average up, they’ll try to hit more safely, take a shorter swing, go for the singles instead of home runs. But we try to set milestones that innovations must meet at every step along the development process. As soon as they miss one, we allocate the resources to another product moving through the funnel. That’s another difference from the old days, when P&G let bad ideas go too far.” A.G. Lafley, CEO, Proctor & Gamble | New York Times, 24 May 2008