Tomorrow belongs to the most collaborative - P&G's Steve Meller at TiECON Australia 2011

“Tomorrow, it won’t be the largest or fastest companies who will succeed but the most collaborative,” Steve Meller, PhD, Chief Innovation Catalyst at Procter and Gamble USA said in his Keynote address, "Open Innovation: P&G's Lifeblood" at TiECON Australia 2011 in Sydney.

TiECON Australia 2011, TiE Sydney’s seminal annual conference "Sustaining Innovation" held on October 11, 2011 at the University of New South Wales in Sydney’s Central Business District, brought together corporates and entrepreneurs in a synergistic collaboration.

The more than 90 delegates were represented by entrepreneurs in all stages, innovators, thought leaders, corporates, academics and several students of innovation and entrepreneurship  had come together to discuss and explore new ways of how agile and nimble inventions and innovations could both disrupt and incrementally improve innovation inside large cumbersome corporates. Perhaps with the exception of Procter and Gamble (P&G), which is one of the world’s most innovative (2008, Business Week) and respected companies (2006, Wall Street Journal).

Leading the innovation debate at TiECON 2011 was P&G USA’s Steve Meller (pictured). The Australian born Meller with a PhD in NeuroScience from the University of Adelaide has been integral to P&G’s world-leading ‘open innovation’ practice and the very successful ‘Connect & Develop’ program that has yielded more than half of P&G’s new products by leveraging expertise outside the company.

“We build partners vs crafting contracts. Our deal structures are as creative as the innovations. No two partnerships are the same, so neither is the agreement. It begins with a conversation and shared vision,” Steve Meller said.

P&G currently has multiple deals with more than 40% of its Connect & Develop partners, which had earned itself a reputation of "making (innovation) strategy its brand. The branded way is how we have chosen to talk about open innovation," he said.

Its Connect & Develop Innovation Network is a confluence of entrepreneurs, consumers, VCs, suppliers, research institutes, contract labs, alliances, Joint Development partners, virtual networks, trade partners, individual inventors, governments labs and retirees. It was this aspect that generated a heightened level of interest and debate evidenced by the lively and interactive debate during the Q&A session. 

So what does the Chief Innovation Catalyst do? “My role is to create strategies and capabilities and then pitch it back to the company. Innovation drives our growth strategy. We are continually expanding brands and leveraging growth. We can’t be everywhere, think of everything, especially not at the speed with which the world operates.

“To deliver what consumers need, in an efficient and cost effective way, that is market-leading, we need to tap the ideas of the world. Innovation will be the key to get there. P&G brings expertise, scale. We focus on what customers really want,” he said.

P&G currently conducts 20,000 research studies which hone in on where (innovation) can impact on consumers which it reaches via 30,000 global suppliers. “Innovation is more than R&D - in fact, its not R&D,” Steve said.

P&G aims to develop more strategic Connect & Develop partnerships to deliver more "game-changing wins for us and our partners and with greater scale."

“We are always looking for collaboration opportunities. Our door is always open to partnerships. It's win-win interactions with us. We want to create partnerships that will sustainably grow over time,” Steve said.

Steve's presentation can be viewed in Entrepreneur's Corner at http://sydney.tie.org/sites/default/files/sydney/article/image/s-meller-procter-gamble.pdf