For two weeks in September, P&G's vice president (R&D) Larry Huston and a team of seven PhDs from the US, scoured about 20 labs in the country, including those of Ranbaxy, Dr. Reddy's, and even CSIR. His objective: Snap up ideas that can help keep the $43 billion P&G one of the world's most innovative household goods company. P&G even has a name for that effort: Connect + Develop. Says Huston: "We are using this visit to get a better understanding of the fit that exists between our needs for cooked products, packaging technologies, and processes, and India's capabilities and assets."

If Huston enjoys his serendipity, it's because in the past it has led P&G to some interesting discoveries. For example, by acquiring a newly-developed spin brush from a Chinese toy company, P&G was able to bring a superior oral care brand, Crest SpinBrush, to the market without having to spend inordinate amount of time and money on it. Similarly, by purchasing the know-how of a hand-held duster developed by a Japanese rival, P&G launched its Swiffer Duster within eight months. Even in India, Huston found labs that were doing interesting work, but had no clue about its potential commercial application.

P&G, which spends about $1.6 billion (Rs 6,900 crore) on R&D annually and has a team of 7,200 researchers, uses Connect + Develop to accelerate its own process of innovation. What the initiative does is to connect P&G to some of the best research labs across the world. Says Shantanu Khosla, Country Manager, P&G India: "We have a network approach to ideas and innovations."

On his part, Huston sees India as a powerful node in this global innovation network. But he wants to be choosy about his nodal labs. Says he: "We have to be careful of the connections we make, since too many connections and inputs could overwhelm the capability." That said, if you've got a really bright idea that can help P&G change the rules of the game, just drop its folk a line.

-Roshni Jayakar

CHOMP
It Works...Sort Of

ITC's Ravi Naware: On a ten-year plan

A year after ITC foods made some serious moves in the market, it's got some good news and some bad news to report. First the good news: Its marketshare in the branded wheat flour segment, where it launched its Ashirwad brand in August last year, has risen to 14 per cent; Minto, which it acquired from Candico in July last year, has cornered 42 per cent of the market, compared to 4 per cent earlier; and its Sunfeast range of biscuits that it launched two months ago, is already getting good response. The bad news: Its snack food brand Bischips has been withdrawn from the market, and its ready-to-eat brand Kitchens of India continues to face an uphill battle against rivals MTR and Tasty Bite. Of course, the business itself continues to lose money. But ITC Foods' CEO Ravi Naware is thinking long term. "It will be eight to 10 years before concrete returns emerge, but we are confident of changing the face of foods business in India." Given ITC's deep pockets, it just may.

-Venkatesha Babu

Infotainment Surge
Discovery and National Geographic get aggressive.

Infotainment channels: They are getting more of the eyeballs now

For most people, Indian TV implies a staple of big bindis, big tears, news, and the odd cricket matches. Unfortunately, that's not a very accurate view. Just ask infotainment channels Discovery and National Geographic. The former already claims to have the highest viewership among English channels (not a totally accurate claim given that it has sizeable Hindi feeds in the north and west), and NatGeo recently claimed to be the second-highest distributed (after Star Plus) on Star.

Discovery's MD Deepak Shourie and NatGeo's MD Zubin Gandevia agree that their growth in viewership was due to these channels fulfilling a need for "informed entertainment" and "mind expansion" that no one else offered. Media planners estimate that the two channels pull in anything between Rs 100 crore and Rs 150 crore a year, but compared to the Rs 4,500-crore plus cable and satellite TV advertising, that's small change.

Both Shourie and Gandevia think their revenues can be significantly increased. And to do that they are planning huge new shows and events for 2004, with specific focus on India. The idea: widen viewership. Point out media planners like Sandeep Vij, President, Optimum Media Solutions (of Mudra): "If they have to grow, they have to go from infotainment to pure entertainment."

Therefore, Discovery's Discover India programmes will not just focus on India's past, but also its present, and NatGeo will soon unveil marketing-based programmes like its reality show Mission Everest. But will either ever displace the K serials? Unlikely.

-Kushan Mitra

ENRONITUS
L'Affaire SembCorp

W

-Nitya Varadarajan