P&G Opens up Innovation Capability in Brussels - What a Brilliant Idea!!

This is fantastic! In Brussels, we(P&G) had some of the best prototyping and testing capabilities in the world, including things that literally do not exist elsewhere. It always seemed a pity that only P&G people were able to access them.

But now that is changing ... and I believe it will be a game-changer for many start-ups in and around Belgium and elsewhere. I'm excited to see it happen even though I'm not directly involved anymore – at least not on the P&G side – I left in 2017 - but maybe someday soon as a customer ??. 

All the information, including virtual tours, is here: https://youreka-virtualtours.be/tours/inqbet/

Let me share some personal perspective:

For more than I decade, I was part of the team that developed outstanding, new-to-the-world prototyping capability in P&G in Brussels, in a facility that was in one sense a pilot-plant, but in another sense, a very different, 21st Century version of a pilot-plant, with some of the most advanced machinery and analytical equipment in the world. Our team was a mix of technical and equipment experts and PhD scientists and engineers. We worked with the best minds in the company and some of the best universities in the world to optimise our equipment and our technical mastery. We worked with industry leaders to bring new technologies to our pilot-plant and make them available to our project teams. In parallel to that, other teams were building different types of new capability, like 3D printing.

And even before that, I was part of a different P&G team, working more closely with consumers to understand how to design products they would love. One of my most creative co-workers, Evy de Muynck, was one of the prime movers in setting up the Consumer Lounge to let us talk to consumers as if they were at home in their own kitchen, using our products. This was one of several tools that we had available to us whenever we wanted to find out anything about how people might view our products, what it would take to make them better, whether they would succeed on the market, and so on.

So I had a very complete education on all aspects of new initiatives, all the way from consumer-research to product design to prototyping to consumer testing, all the way to marketing. A lot of the keys to success are things that you never even think about until you're actually in the midst of designing a new product and suddenly you realise you need this or that information, and you have no clue how or where to get it. Will the product be stable during shipment? Will the label be clear enough? What price-point would maximise income? Profit? Will we make money?

And P&G has built, over the years, a structure in which we could ask and answer these questions. And it always seemed like a pity that we were the only people who could use it, since the vast majority of companies in Belgium are not competitors of P&G – in fact, we have many more collaborators than competitors.

And all the while, being a "Learner" by personality, I was passionately involved in the new "extra-curricular" InQbet initiative, led by some of the more crazy-out-of-the-box-thinkers in the company, like Andre Convents and Lucresse van Wonterghem, people who had ideas 10 or 20 years before their time, who always saw that P&G should be embracing open-innovation, long before (as we say in Ireland) it was profitable or popular to think that way.

So they were creating fast-track, low-cost ways to build prototypes and get immediate and valuable consumer-feedback, all the way to realistic purchase-intent under real-market conditions. At first this was focused on enabling us to run some of our innovation program more like a start-up, with LEAN innovation, rapid-prototyping, fast consumer-feedback and so on, but then it started expanding to working with start-ups too.

Indeed, we were starting to do hackathons and to work with start-ups several years ago. However, there was still a very sharp division - they were "external", they could come to our hackathons and meeting rooms, we would engage with them and support them, especially where there was some mutual benefit available ... but nobody could go near our labs or pilot-plant, where most of the real P&G innovation happened. In fact, even our own Marketing people weren't allowed into the pilot-plant without being accompanied. (hopefully that policy remains in place !! ?? )

Being more aware than most of the amazing and flexibile capability we had, but at the same time being exposed more and more to the world outside P&G, I often felt that it was a pity that these resources were only available within P&G. It seemed that they would be such an amazing resource to so many start-ups, regardless of whether their products or ideas were interesting for P&G or not.

People used to come into our pilot plant with a recipe for a complex product, often a multiphase, structured liquid for example, that they had made in one beaker in the lab. Our pilot-plant technology experts would walk them through the process of turning their recipe into a product, would ask them a series of detailed questions to ensure we'd get it right first time, to ensure we were clear about all parameters that were important.

And a week later they would have 400 liters of the product they designed, produced to the highest quality standards, tested for all critical parameters, and packed in 400 perfectly labelled bottles ready to be shipped to consumers or to be used in a store test. And I used to wonder how many start-ups would kill to have that kind of prototyping capability. Because, without it, how can you ever really test whether your new product is good enough to succeed on the market?

Now that I'm working for a start-up and doing some consulting with other start-ups, I realise even more strongly how valuable this can be. I see how difficult it can be to access laboratory facilities or prototype-making capability without significant expenditure.

Recently a client was struggling to find even the space to run a few simple formulation tests on a complex fluid, but it's just not easy to find laboratories with mixers and fume-hoods and high-grade rheometers who will let you come in and work in them.

Likewise, having spent a decade working with some of the best consumer-researchers and psychologists in the world, I realise how hard it is for a small start-up to get good consumer feedback when you have just a small team of designers. And perhaps, even worse, how easy it is to get bad or misleading consumer feedback :(

Even if you happen to have the right expertise, the logistical challenges of setting it up, of knowing whom to talk to in order to find the people you'd like to talk to (e.g. early-adopters who are passionate about their hair looking great every day but want only natural ingredients :D) is a huge barrier to getting the fast but accurate feedback that you need.

So I've been really excited to see how P&G has been planning to open up all this wonderful capability.

A lot of this is being led by my former "M-partner", Simon Logtenberg, (I was his "T-partner"!) whose ability and limitless positivity and energy were surely critical to making this vision a reality. Last December, prior to an "alumnus-invitation" to the departmental Christmas Event, I got a special preview of the new capability that was being finalised to enable P&Gers and visitors to both make and pack prototypes of all kinds. The presentations and videos you'll find at the link below is only the tip of the iceberg. You really need to see it to believe it.

P&G's partner in this is Workero, and it's no coincidence that one of the key movers there is also a former R&D colleague of mine, John Vanderlinden, another person seemingly blessed with limitless positivity and energy, who has also been regularly keeping me updated on progress. He probably will not see that he's mentioned here because he won’t read this far .. he rightly says that I have a tendency to be too wordy when I write :D ... but I believe that it needed someone who had previously worked in R&D in P&G to realise just how much potential there was if the capability were to be opened up to external clients.

I love the new open way of working that is changing around the world. This is truly a win/win solution. It is so much more efficient. It is so much more sustainable – why duplicate equipment when you can share it? And not only that – it helps us grow our capability. Not only can others access the facilities that P&G has built, but P&G can now justify even more investment in equipment that maybe is difficult to justify based purely on internal use.

And I have no doubt that working closely with some innovative start-ups will spur even more great ideas within P&G too, and help my few remaining P&G shares to keep growing in value …

If anyone thinks this might be interesting for them, have a look at the link below. I presume that all the details for contacting Workero and finding out more are there. If you have a question or a challenge where this might be interesting but you're not even sure where to start, I’m happy to help ... at worst, I can put you in touch with someone who can answer your questions. I have no current relationship with P&G or Workero, I just think this is really cool, that this is the future of work, and I want to see it succeed.

https://youreka-virtualtours.be/tours/inqbet/