Stifled by in-house constraints? outsource to make innovations real
When you’re a big company, in many ways it’s hard to be a disruptive innovator. Time and again, I’m reminded of how challenging concept development and testing can be for big companies. It’s not that our clients don’t see the benefit of making products real in order to test them. Rather, they’re limited by existing supply chains and manufacturing systems.
2024 Expo West Trends
Another fantastic year at Expo West has wrapped up, where the future of food and beverage was on display and innovation and sustainability took center stage. Here are some trends and brands that caught our eye!
3 Steps to avoid squashing disruptive innovation ideas
Building confidence in disruptive ideas isn’t easy, which is why the most exciting ideas tend to get squashed. Big companies aren’t entrepreneurs—there’s a lot more at stake. It’s so much simpler to stick with what has worked in the past, to conform ideas to fit the existing model, instead of championing break-out ideas and taking the first steps to test them in the marketplace.
What can we do? Here are three steps to consider.
Happy New Year & 2023 Favorites Innovations
All of us at Mission Field wish you a phenomenal end of 2023 and fantastic start to 2024!
As we close out 2023, our team wanted to share a few of our favorite new innovations that caught our eye and made it into our homes this year. Hope you enjoy
SETTING Top Tier Innovation GOALS FOR CPG INNOVATION: The Vitality Index
Measuring the effectiveness of innovation has been a significant challenge for many companies. McKinsey's Vitality Index offers a solution to this problem by tracking the share of sales coming from innovation. We want to share some key knowledge on what this goal may look like for large CPGs.
Celebrate National Innovation Day: Four common myths and four truths about being innovative
February 16 is National Innovation Day – a day to celebrate innovation big and small and the folks who bring them to life. Let’s look at four common myths and four truths about innovative thinking:
is disruptive innovation only for the young, or could it be about something else?
Is disruptive innovation actually best suited when it nails the ideal context rather than focusing on the target audience? Does the association of location matter more than who it’s targeting?
WANT TO IMPROVE YOUR INNOVATION SUCCESS RATE? ASK A RETAILER
When I worked for big CPG, we rarely showed our early innovation pipeline to any retailers to get their feedback. The rationale was that we didn’t want to tip our hand or often we thought it was too early to show just concepts versus actual product.
When we did bring innovation, it was ready to launch and too late for retailer’s input.
Missed opportunity.
Emotional Intelligence: why it makes you a better innovator
What is Emotional Intelligence and how is it connected to innovation? How can you improve the EI of your team?
Fast 50 Winner!
Mission Field is proud to announce we’ve been awarded the 2022 “Fast 50” award for being one of the fastest growing companies in Colorado!
Fire in the machine
In Fire In the Machine, Jonathan Tofel and Carolina Sasson share insight gained from decades spent working within and consulting to Fortune 500 companies. They share the strategies that have helped their CPG clients harness the startup mindset with big business systems to unleash the best of both worlds.
How nature and coin flipping help decision making
The ability to make good decisions is one of the most important skills in business. Innovation requires numerous decisions to be made: what price, what package, what flavor, what size, where in the store… the list can seem daunting.
So, what can you do to improve your decision-making skills?
Strengthening your intuition and thinking probabilistically are two good options.