Page 27 - Harvard Business Review, Sep/Oct 2018

large event (such as a tornado). “[Reckitt Finish 2-in-1. A few years later it added a by introducing new packaging, including
Benckiser] doesn’t have the deep pockets salt component and renamed the detergent bottles that are stored upside down (to
to spend on big-bang innovation,” they Finish 3-in-1. Today the product is Finish facilitate easy pouring) and fast-food
write. “So it opts for a different approach: All-in-1, owing to the addition of a glaze- dipping trays that make it less messy to
spend small, but focus that investment protection agent. With each incremental eat ketchup with fries.
on marginal improvements in their most improvement, sales and profits grew. On the basis of their interviews
valuable brands, aimed at solving real Other successful small-scale with R&D employees, Corstjens and
consumer problems, that consumers value innovations involve packaging. In 2004, Northwestern professor Gregory Carpenter
and would pay a little more for.” They cite when McDonald’s changed how it sold conclude that companies placing bigger
the company’s Finish brand of dishwasher its milk, going from cardboard boxes to bets on R&D do see some returns on
detergent. Decades after the original translucent plastic jugs resembling old- those investments, but they may not be
product’s launch, Reckitt Benckiser added fashioned milk bottles, sales tripled in just obvious, top-line payoffs. For instance,
a rinse agent and changed the name to a year. Heinz has grown sales of ketchup he says, R&D can help a company reduce
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Illustrations by Will Haywood SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2018 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW 23