Speed and Your Innovation Strategy

There are many parables on the increasing speed of change - whether its Moore’s Law (transistors on a chip double every 2 years) or Kurzweil (progress doubles every decade), we’re clearly living in a time when the rate of change is speeding up. Innovation within consumer packaged goods is on the same path - and you’re either adapting and quickening your pace or challenged with old systems & processes that put you at-risk of losing opportunities & value.

A recent discussion I had with a retail VP of a major Organic/Natural grocery chain just hammered home the point of the need for speed. As we were discussing the retailer’s overall desire to harness cutting edge ideas and emerging trends, our contact made a point that “large CPGs are falling behind in many ways” because they “are waiting too long to get into the mix.” Curious to hear more on this point, we took a sideways discussion on who was driving her growth and creating internal excitement. What came out was how mid-tier brands were driving most of the innovation (both within categories and creation of new categories) because they appeared to be able to “move quickly, better understand the shifting needs of consumers and able to react and adapt to new trends.”

In the early part of my career - which started a good 20 years ago - my P&G training taught me to be precise and careful in order to find a consumer truth that would lead to new innovations. That thinking still has value, but it also does not mean it has to take between 5 to 7 years to go from a concept to shopper-validated opportunities. Luckily at Mission Field with our skunk-works operational structure, we can take your innovation strategy and help move you quickly through precise and carefully executed phases of concepts & platform development, formulas & product production and in-store transactional testing in as little as 6-9 months…. and all without the need for your organization to change anything, other than the desire to keep up with the pace of innovation.