The low success rate for innovation in Indian FMCG became a subject of interest at Nestlé India. Partnering with Nielsen we set out to understand what it takes innovations to win in the long term- form birth, to breakthrough and beyond the first phase of life on the shop shelf. The ensuring investigation threw up some surprises, but more importantly brought forth simple tenets that can instruct new launches to higher probability of enduring success, The passage to a winning, sustainable innovation has two critical stage gates incumbent in it: getting the innovation rights (pre-launch) and getting it through (once on the shelf). We examined both via frameworks created for the purpose and developed a guide for marketers wishing to maximize their chances in the marketplace.
Indian FMCG's checkered innovation record of 23 proven successes out of 16,914 new launches in 2012 piqued our interest here at Nestlé India. An examination of what it takes to win at innovation long term was undertaken and yielded startling discoveries. The marketplace is merciless! Only 8 out of the 23 were still flourishing. This led us to delve into the causality of sustainable success. The analysis threw up simple tenets that can guide new launches in India and elsewhere, with benchmarks from retail data to chart progress and performance.