The P&G Case

For my Consulting Enterprise project, we are looking at new ways Thrivent can measure innovation. Today, I was in a meeting with someone from 3M to try to get a sense of how other firms measure and think about innovation. During the meeting, the person from 3M brought up P&G and its global idea sourcing initiatives as an example of how some firms look externally to tap into other spaces for solutions. (The timing of our P&G case was perfect!) From the conversation, I was also left with the sense that this kind of process serves as an internal signal that affirms and propagates an internal culture where ideas and innovation matter a lot. It's interesting to think of these kinds of initiatives as being self-sustaining. In the end, it seems that a firm's ability to implement some of these innovative processes (such as global idea sourcing) is highly contingent upon whether or not it has the internal culture and structural elements to support them.