IDEAS WANTED - The Clorox Company

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IDEAS WANTED OPENING THE DOORS OF INNOVATION TO DRIVE GROWTH BY ALISON OHLHOFF, DIAMOND CORRESPONDENT mother of six and grandmother of four goes online to share A product ideas with Clorox that she believes will make a mom’s job easier. A Clorox scientist asks an online network of suppliers for their ideas about a problem he’s having in the lab. Clorox employee teams from around the world pitch business proposals — as selected by their peers — to the Clorox Executive Committee. Increasingly, we’re opening the doors of innovation at Clorox. And in the process, we’re fundamentally changing the way we conceive growth ideas. We’re dreaming bigger with outside input “Historically, we’ve tended to hunker down and not always connect with one another,” says Greg Piche, Idea Network lead. “But that’s changing. People understand that we need to grow, and that our survival depends on stepping back from 4
our current workloads and dreaming bigger together.” A large part of dreaming bigger is our increasing focus on open innovation. For example, a smaller company like Clorox — with an R&D budget a fraction of the size of our larger competitors — can vastly increase the idea pipeline by working with external companies that have complementary capabilities and expertise. We began using this open innovation approach more than a decade ago when we started working with external partners on the creation of new products. On one project, we licensed packaging for Clorox® Bleach Pen® gel from a Japanese glue stick manufacturer. A few years later, in 2003, we began a joint venture with Procter & Gamble to drive innovation and growth for Glad® products. The joint venture used P&G technology originally developed for diapers to enable superior stretch, tear resistance and adhesive properties for ForceFlex® trash bags and Press’n Seal® wrap. Last year, we began offering P&G’s Febreeze® technology in our OdorShield® trash products. Over the years, we’ve evolved our approach to open innovation. Imagine innovation as a funnel. Lots of ideas for new products feed into the wide end of the funnel, but as the funnel narrows, FIND IDEAS Develop external networks to increase the sources of new ideas. BUILD OPPORTUNITIES DEVELOP IS THERE A NEW WAY TO LOOK AT SOMETHING? Get more information at Innovent2011.com !nnovent 2011, our employee idea contest, attracted more than 600 participants, 1,000 comments and ratings, and 380 new product and business process ideas. ideas are screened out and only a few are developed and launched. “When we increased our open innovation efforts in 2000, we were focused in the middle of the innovation funnel, looking for technologies to develop ideas we already had,” says Jennifer Miller, director — Marketing, Corporate Innovation. “Now we want to use open innovation to come up with the ideas themselves, to make the mouth of the funnel even wider.” The open innovation approach we’re using can provide new opportunities and new solutions, as well as completely new ideas. Use others’ capabilities and expertise combined with internal strengths to find better product and technology solutions with less up-front time and investment. LAUNCH Develop and launch meaningful products. Clorox Named Partner of Choice In April, Clorox received the 2011 Open Innovation Partner of Choice Award, presented by marcus evans conferences. Clorox received multiple nominations for our Open Innovation Networks team, which helps drive innovation through external partnerships. Clorox was selected through a process that surveyed peers and innovation leaders from a cross-section of North American industries, including past delegates of the annual marcus evans Open Innovation conference. A panel of judges determined this year’s winner based on contributions to the discipline of open innovation. Past winners include P&G and General Mills. Clorox connects employees, consumers, suppliers and inventors The corporate Open Innovation Networks (OIN) team is leading the charge to connect internal teams with external ideas and capabilities. This includes tightening their internal connections to the business units to ensure that the ideas they deliver are in lockstep with the SBUs’ strategies and core capabilities. A key resource for collecting ideas is CloroxConnects, an online forum where hundreds of Clorox employees, consumers, suppliers and inventors share and discuss ideas, and collaborate on improvements that could help Clorox. “Real innovation happens when communities develop. This is the value of CloroxConnects,” says Andy Gilicinski, director – Research & Development. “When you get people who are interested in an idea and passionate about the possibility, and they begin to associate with each other, that’s where the magic happens.” “We’re striving to create a ‘publish, then edit’ environment,” says Greg, who spearheaded the effort to get CloroxConnects off the ground and now serves as the community’s mayor. “We want to get people to a place where they feel like they can share ideas and 5
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