A leading multinational consumer goods corporation's fabric care business unit sought to streamline its innovation process in a rapidly evolving, post-COVID world. Faced with increasing pressure to launch antiviral and antibacterial products, the company needed to efficiently manage its research and development (R&D) process, particularly in ingredient scouting and partner selection. Although the need to innovate quickly was evident, the complexities of lab testing and formulating compliant products led to bottlenecks in the product development cycle.
Diagnose: Overcoming Innovation and R&D Bottlenecks
The client faced significant challenges in their product innovation process:
- Need for Compliance: The post-COVID environment required products to meet rigorous hygiene standards, specifically antiviral and antibacterial characteristics, increasing the complexity of ingredient selection.
- Slow and Generic Scouting Process: The traditional approach of using general search engines for ingredient and partner scouting led to generic results needing more specificity for high-throughput R&D processes.
- Time and Cost Pressure: Delays caused by inefficient ingredient and partner scouting processes, combined with the need for rapid market entry, resulted in increased R&D costs and slower time to market.
The diagnosis revealed that the company needed a more dynamic, scalable process for selecting the right ingredients and partners. This process would enable faster and more informed decision-making, aligning with the speed of innovation in the consumer goods industry.
Design: Developing a Dynamic Benchmarking Solution
To address these challenges, Evalueserve IP and R&D designed a solution centered around Insightloupe, a powerful platform for dynamic benchmarking and innovation scouting. The critical components of the solution included:
- Customizable Scouting: Insightloupe allowed the client to tailor ingredient and partner scouting outputs based on specific requirements, ensuring alignment with strategic R&D objectives.
- Dynamic Benchmarking: By ranking ingredients and partners based on customizable parameters, the platform enabled more precise decision-making and reduced the number of experiments required.
- Collaboration Tools: The platform’s centralized data storage and collaboration features allowed stakeholders across the organization to access noise-free, categorized innovation studies, leading to more cohesive R&D efforts.
Deploy: Implementing the Insightloupe for Efficient Innovation
The deployment phase focused on the practical application of Insightloupe to the client’s innovation process:
- Tailored Ingredient Scouting: The client used Insightloupe’s dynamic benchmarking engine to evaluate hundreds of potential ingredients and partners, filtering options based on compliance with hygiene standards and supply chain capabilities.
- Streamlined Decision-Making: The client reduced the number of lab tests and experiments by focusing only on the top-performing ingredients identified through the platform’s analytical engine.
- Collaborative Innovation: With Insightloupe’s built-in collaboration tools, cross-functional teams worked seamlessly, accelerating the innovation cycle from scouting to product launch.
Impact: Accelerating R&D with Dynamic Benchmarking
The implementation of Insightloupe had a transformative impact on the company's R&D process:
- Substantial Cost Reductions: By minimizing redundant experiments and concentrating on the most relevant components, the client realized significant savings during the R&D phase.
- Faster Time-to-Market: The client launched a new, compliant product faster than conventional R&D methods, capitalizing on new revenue streams in the hygiene-conscious consumer goods market.
- Informed Innovation: Dynamic benchmarking gave the client a clearer understanding of market needs and potential partners, leading to more informed decisions aligned with their innovation goals.
Conclusion: Transforming R&D with Insightloupe's Dynamic Benchmarking
By implementing Evalueserve's Insightloupe platform, the client revolutionized their approach to ingredient and partner scouting, optimizing their innovation process to meet the demands of a post-COVID marketplace. The dynamic benchmarking and centralized collaboration features allowed the company to make informed decisions more quickly, saving time and money and positioning them as a leader in fast and compliant product innovation in the competitive fabric care industry.
