The great advantage of the ‘Discovery’ approach lies in the freshness of thinking and value it brings to your business.
Mike Addison, Open Innovation Director, Procter and Gamble
Regardless of how big an organisation is, R&D departments will always be finite. We worked with Procter & Gamble (P&G) to help the multinational manufacturer identify and develop innovative ideas from small firms outside its own research labs, bringing new technologies into the company.
In order to encourage participation from the UK’s product design network we adapted a methodology from British Design Innovation (BDI). To kick the process off, P&G invited interested designers and universities to respond to two open briefs on fabric care and wellness, with the aim of finding innovations that could produce new global markets worth $100 million.
NESTA, 100%Open, British Design Innovation and Oakland Innovation acted as ‘trusted agents’ both for P&G and for the inventors. They judged and helped develop the ideas, side-stepping traditional problems with intellectual property as P&G didn’t see the ideas until they were protected and developed. P&G has ‘first refusal’ on the ideas, but if it doesn’t take them up the small firms are free to approach other corporates.
The Challenge attracted 170 initial expressions of interest, with 120 designer/inventors attending the launch events. From this group, 72 ideas were submitted by 25 companies. The Open Innovation Challenge led to an in-depth examination by P&G of four opportunities. Not only was this programme a much more cost effective way of sourcing new technologies for Procter and Gamble , but the multinational now has a new breakthrough concept in active development.
