Consumer products and retail companies struggling to innovate

LONDON, June 17, 2014 /CNW/ - The vast majority of consumer products and retail executives (66%) say that collaboration with smaller entrepreneurial firms has become increasingly important to drive innovation and achieve their strategic goals. Yet only one in 10 deem their companies very effective at both sourcing potential collaborators and aligning incentives between the two partners. This is the topline finding of a survey of 267 consumer products and retail senior executives globally, featured in a new paper by EY, Delivering agile innovation.

Nearly one in five (19%) respondents say they are very effective at achieving revenue increases, 16% are very effective at achieving margin increases and only 10% are very effective at generating intellectual property from these partnerships.

Andrew Cosgrove, EY's Global Consumer Products Lead Analyst, says: ''Traditional approaches to innovation are no longer fit for purpose. Consumer products companies and retailers must innovate both their products and their business models. Growth is challenging, margins are stressed and the rapid evolution of technology and data has fundamentally changed consumer behavior."

David Jensen, EY's Global Innovation and Digital Strategy Leader, says: "Succeeding in the age of innovation requires companies to rethink their approach to new product and process development. Companies must collaborate with external partners, particularly smaller entrepreneurs, to identify, develop and scale up promising new product and process ideas. Additionally, companies need to look at innovation opportunities beyond just products and processes, and consider business models, consumer experiences and brand engagement as part of an overall innovation portfolio.

"It is smaller entrepreneurial firms that can offer the agility and creative thinking that larger organizations need to unplug innovation bottlenecks. Overcoming the difficulties of collaborating with entrepreneurs will be critical if companies in the sector are to thrive in the long term."

The paper, which also features the insights of 45 in-depth interviews with senior industry figures, outlines nine key principles that larger consumer products and retail companies should follow to create value from collaborating with smaller entrepreneurial firms and deliver agile innovation.

These are:

1. Make the case for being agile
2. Cultivate an agile culture of experimentation
3. Think simple, act fast
4. Identify the right team
5. Determine the appropriate framework for each collaboration
6. Maintain open and frequent communication
7. Adapt processes and break the rules as necessary
8. Define and measure success
9. Iterate and work incrementally

The full paper can be downloaded here: www.ey.com/CP-innovation

Notes to editors

About the survey

Delivering agile innovation is an EY executive summary based on two key strands of research. A survey of 267 consumer products and retail executives and in-depth interviews with about 60% of executives representing CP firms and 40% of executives representing retail. More than 50% of companies have more than US$500m in annual revenues. Half were C-level executives, and respondents overall represented a range of functions, including marketing, sales, finance and R&D. Respondents were spread evenly around the world, with close to one-third each from EMEIA, Asia-Pacific and the Americas. Secondly, EY and Longitude Research conducted 45 interviews with senior executives from consumer products and retail companies, entrepreneurs and academics. We are very grateful to all the individuals who participated in the research.

About EY

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How EY's Global Consumer Products Center can help your business

Consumer products companies are operating in a brand new order, a challenging environment of spiraling complexity and unprecedented change. Demand is shifting to rapid-growth markets, costs are rising, consumer behavior and expectations are evolving, and stakeholders are becoming more demanding. To succeed, companies now need to be leaner and more agile, with a relentless focus on execution. Our Global Consumer Products Center enables our worldwide network of more than 16,000 sector-focused assurance, tax, transaction and advisory professionals to share powerful insights and deep sector knowledge with businesses like yours. This intelligence, combined with our technical experience, can assist you in making more informed strategic choices and help you execute better and faster.

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SOURCE: EY

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