As demonstrated by Bruce Brown and Scott D. Anthony, one of the key aspects of P&G’s success is a specific way of organization that presupposes a perfect mixture of edisons and fords – while the first one creates the innovation, the latter develops it into the mass production. Besides, there are 6 major principles the company pays special attention to: raw materials, factory floor, skilled operators, process manual, dashboard and production schedule. Moreover, P&G’s systematic way of organization means strong collaboration between the factory and the core business as they are interdependent. It is also worth mentioning that what makes P&G successful is its ability to be global and local at the same time – looking closer to local flaws helps to prevent them from getting into the international level and, thus, always keeps the company on the top.
How does its innovation strategy challenge the traditional structure of the company?
I think that there are 2 main differences between the company’s traditional innovation strategy and the newest one. Unlike the conventional P&G’s innovation strategy that was internal, nowadays the company involves external sources for innovative ideas and collaboration, making it an open-sourced model. Secondly, I suppose that the company started looking closer to the context their customers are from when conducting innovative researches.
How does the company motivate employees to be adaptable and innovate?
What the company does in order to motivate its employees is giving them more freedom and as much responsibility as possible – in such a way every employee can see their contribution to the company’s growth and realize that he or she is not just an asset, but a person who is respected and valued by P&G. Furthermore, the company gets the managers ‘dissolved’ among the subordinates, in such a way creating perfect conditions for the effective collaboration and, ultimately, productive innovation.
