{"id":31268,"date":"2018-11-13T08:05:49","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T13:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/open-innovation-in-cpg-the-successes-and-failures-of-henrinestle\/"},"modified":"2018-11-13T08:05:49","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T13:05:49","slug":"open-innovation-in-cpg-the-future-of-henrinestle","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/open-innovation-in-cpg-the-future-of-henrinestle\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Innovation in CPG: The Future of HENRi@Nestl\u00e9"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meeting HENRi:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Helping families manage portion control<\/em>\u2026Improving maternal nutrition during pregnancy and breastfeeding<\/em>\u2026Finding an alternative to PET in water bottles<\/em>… Each of these could be the one-sentence pitch for a popular, VC-backed start-up, but instead they are the aspirations of the multinational food and beverage giant Nestl\u00e9 through its HENRi@Nestl\u00e9 open innovation platform. In its mission to become the global leader in nutrition, health, and wellness, Nestl\u00e9 faced problems too broad and too important to be tackled internally. [1] Therefore, in conjunction with the Company\u2019s 150th<\/sup> birthday in 2016, Nestl\u00e9\u2019s Global Innovation Director Gerardo Mazzeo and Global Head of Digital and Social Pete Blackshaw launched HENRi.<\/p>\n

Named for the Swiss confectioner who founded Nestl\u00e9, the HENRi program seeks external partners with bold new ideas. Through HENRi@Nestl\u00e9, the Company posts challenges with the aim of soliciting \u201cambitious and innovative\u201d proposals from start-ups. These projects have both a social good component and a direct connection to one or more of the Company\u2019s brands. For example, KITKAT Sustainability<\/em> sought a partner to connect consumers with the Nestl\u00e9 Cocoa Plan\u2019s efforts to provide a better life for its farmers. [2] Good-Loop, an ethical video advertising platform, was chosen from over 150 applications. Once accepted, a bid is guaranteed $50,000 to pilot a proof-of-concept and assigned a senior sponsor at Nestl\u00e9 to oversee the partnership.<\/p>\n

HENRi\u2019s Success:<\/strong><\/p>\n

HENRi@Nestl\u00e9 has shaped its program to capitalize on several of the best practices of open innovation: intrinsic motivation, high-volume solution-generation through crowd contests, and project scope specificity. [3] While businesses typically have to offer their employee base some form of financial compensation, open innovation has allowed Nestl\u00e9 to receive hundreds of proposals for free. Nestl\u00e9 has only posted HENRi challenges that enhance the Company\u2019s corporate social responsibility and has heavily publicized its partner selection. Therefore, the applicant pool could include start-ups seeking publicity, an opportunity to improve the world, or a chance to learn, in addition to those attracted by the $50,000 prize. Similarly, by structuring HENRi as a series of public contests, Nestl\u00e9 maximizes the members of the virtual community, including those without traditional backgrounds, who might participate in an HENRi challenge. This should provide a diverse solution set and encourage experimentation from applicants. Nestl\u00e9 has been superb at clearly defining the scope of its desired solutions. For its Nutritional Awareness<\/em> challenge, Nestl\u00e9 specified its desire for a project that took advantage of the rise of cellphone penetration in Equatorial Africa.<\/p>\n

Over the past two years, the HENRi challenges with a marketing bend have performed quite well. In addition to Good-Loop, Nestl\u00e9 has also formed partnerships with Linqia (Influencer Optimization), Crowdly (Word-of-Mouth Advocacy), and NextUser (Marketing Data Analysis). The early success matched Company expectations as open innovation in marketing represented a natural progression from Nestl\u00e9\u2019s digital initiatives. Nestl\u00e9 built upon this strength by forming a partnership with the ad:tech conferences in London and New Delhi where an HENRi challenge underpins the conference\u2019s signature Next Big Thing pitch competition. Nestl\u00e9 has clearly found a productive niche.<\/p>\n

HENRi as Innovation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

HENRi@Nestl\u00e9 has struggled to attract compelling start-ups to its more technical contests. In the months following the site\u2019s launch, Gerardo Mazzeo lamented the lack of submissions for the Alternative Material to PET <\/em>and Micronutrient Deficiency<\/em> projects. To date, neither challenge has identified its collaborators or announced any progress. Earlier this year, Nestl\u00e9 Waters released a bottle made from 100% recycled PET in an effort unaffiliated with HENRi. [4] If HENRi@Nestl\u00e9 cannot generate successful partnerships across problem types, then the entire effort could amount to a well-publicized bake off for creative marketing solutions.<\/p>\n

Nestl\u00e9 has also limited the scope of problems for which it utilizes open innovation to those which have a demonstrable favorable global impact. This is a logical strategy for a new program receiving significant publicity. However, key initiatives at Nestl\u00e9 will not always have positive externalities. If Nestl\u00e9 views HENRi as an ongoing source of creative thinking, then it should pilot a challenge without any clear benefits outside Nestl\u00e9.<\/p>\n

The Future of HENRi?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nestl\u00e9 is committed to thoroughly vetting its HENRi platform. The program\u2019s 13th<\/sup> and 14th<\/sup> projects are live, and the Company highlighted HENRi@Nestl\u00e9 as a major source of digital innovation in its 2017 Annual Report. [5] Yet, Nestl\u00e9 has also seen certain HENRi challenges get overlooked by the creative community. Open innovation may not provide a solution to every problem Nestl\u00e9 posts, but if science-based partnerships are categorically ignored then HENRi is little more than high-leverage marketing spend. HENRi@Nestl\u00e9 is at a turning point: should Gerardo and his team take steps to court more technical start-ups or are the current ad-tech solutions enough for HENRi to be considered a success?<\/p>\n

(Word Count: 770)<\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0Mazzeo, Gerardo, and Pete Blackshaw. 2016. An Introduction to HENRi@NestleTV.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0Audoyer, Florence. 2017. “THE KITKAT SUSTAINABILITY PROJECT”.\u00a0Henri@Nestle<\/i>. https:\/\/henri.nestle.com\/live-projects\/kitkat-sustainability-project.<\/p>\n

[3]\u00a0Boudreau, Kevin, and Karim Lakhani. 2013. “Using The Crowd As An Innovation Partner”.\u00a0性视界 Business Review<\/i>, April 2013.<\/p>\n

[4]\u00a0Nestl\u00e9\u00ae pure life\u00ae purified water launches new bottle made from 100 percent recycled plastic* in north america. (2018, Feb 15).\u00a0PR Newswire<\/i>\u00a0Retrieved from http:\/\/search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu\/docview\/2002240722?accountid=11311.<\/p>\n

[5]\u00a0Nestle Global. 2018. “Annual Report 2017”. https:\/\/www.nestle.com\/asset-library\/documents\/library\/documents\/annual_reports\/2017-annual-review-en.pdf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Examining Nestle's Open Innovation Program<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11843,"featured_media":31332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[4239],"class_list":["post-31268","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-innovation","hck-taxonomy-organization-nestle","hck-taxonomy-industry-food-and-beverage","hck-taxonomy-country-switzerland"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/rc-tom-challenge-2018\/","yoast_head":"\nOpen Innovation in CPG: The Future of HENRi@Nestl\u00e9 - Technology and Operations Management<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/open-innovation-in-cpg-the-future-of-henrinestle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Open Innovation in CPG: The Future of HENRi@Nestl\u00e9 - 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