Global Innovation: Taking on the World

2014 was a really interesting year at The Value Engineers because of the number and size of really significant global innovation projects we were involved in. Many of our packaged goods clients have been merging their regional offices to save costs, while looking for growth in new categories, leading to a greater demand for multi country innovation projects.

Global innovation is one of the biggest challenges for any marketeer. To win, you need to apply all the skills you picked up in the previous stages of your career – consumer understanding, opportunity identification, concept development, stakeholder management – and some new ones. These will include everything from the subtleties of appealing to new consumers, cultures and languages, right down to the logistics of global travel.

So what are the big challenges? When your innovation project goes global, you will still face all the questions you’d have in a single country innovation project (what do customers actually want? how can we make it? what brand should we sell it under? will it be big enough?) but with some new dimensions:

• To what extent are the needs in the different countries similar or different? Can they be met by one new product? Looking across the markets, what are the big clusters, and how should they be approached?
• How do we keep all the local and regional marketing teams on board? How can we keep our desire for global success aligned with their desire to launch whatever will sell well locally? What’s the right leadership structure for the team when there are lots of opinions?
• How do you balance the pressure to ‘get it right’ (something that will work perfectly everywhere) - with the desire to ‘get it done’ (a product working in at least one market, with potential to succeed elsewhere, before the project deadline)?

Across the projects we've worked on recently, there seem to be two broad approaches to global innovation projects. The first is entrepreneurial – you select a lead country, create a mix that will work for that market, while keeping the needs of the rest of the world in mind. The second is a more disciplined approach – you create a brand for the whole world, and try that out in the lead market before rolling it out elsewhere. Having seen both of these approaches play out, the former typically delivers better results, faster.

You also need to think carefully about your team. There are two broad character types in the wide world of marketing. Some marketeers are entrepreneurial – led by the desire to achieve sales, to see supermarket shelves emptying, factories at full capacity, sales targets met and bonuses won. Others are more process oriented – driven by the desire to fine tune concept wording, optimise media strategy, and prevent mistakes. The two tribes don’t always get on, but probably wouldn’t succeed without each other. You will need a balance of both in your team, and you will need to create a project management structure that allows the two groups to work together harmoniously.

So if you’re about to kick off a major multicountry innovation project, these would be my top tips:

1. Pick your lead market carefully. Ideally, this market will have:
   • Lots of appropriate consumers who have the need you’re targeting. If you’re selling ice cream don’t start in Iceland. If you’re selling snow boots don’t start in AbuDhabi.
   • A great local sales team with a track record of selling innovation to the trade. If they get it wrong and the product fails in its first market then the project will die.
2. Develop the product primarily for that lead market. Successful innovation needs a good creative idea, and it’s hard to be creative with a huge, undistinguishable global population in mind. You’re more likely to succeed if you pick the right lead country in the first place, and then develop a product specifically for the people you meet there. You can always fine tune the formulation for subsequent markets. If the product isn’t specifically tailored to the needs of your lead market, and fails because of it, your project will be in trouble.
3. Get structured. There will be lots of decisions to make, and lots of opinions to deal with. If you use an approach like R.A.P.I.D. https://www.bain.com/publications/articles/RAPID-tool-to-clarify-decision-accountability.aspx to decide who makes the final Decision, who will have Input, and who’s Responsible for making it all happen, your life will be easier. Specifically, this is the chance to let some of your senior stakeholders know that they will not have input to all of the decisions, allowing the process to move faster and with less discussion.
4. Agree the key decisions and action standards in advance. For example, if you’re selling biscuits, you might need to do some of the following:

If you can set this process up before you start the project, your stakeholders will know exactly how each decision is going to be made, minimising arguments later in the project. If they get the impression you’re making it up as you go along you will be bombarded with opinions, generating more heat than light.

Global Innovation is complex and challenging, but it’s also great fun, takes you to amazing places, with tremendous people. If you’re planning your company’s next global expansion we’d love to talk to you.