The Advantage of Scale part 2

One company that’s managed to employ many of these strategies to its own benefit is the one we started with: Mars. Over the past few years, it has seen its sales growth rebound to 16 percent. The company has successfully chipped away at risk aversion in R&D and streamlined its cumbersome market testing processes. It’s had a number of successful launches, including Snickers Marathon, the CocoaVia line, and WholeMeals bone-shaped pet food.
Mars also renewed its emphasis on production and formulation technologies that it could apply across multiple products. For example, it holds patents on the special ink used to print personalized M&Ms, themselves a significant new development meeting an emerging consumer desire for customized confections. These personalized candies, called My M&M’s, were developed by an internal team in just 90 days using a streamlined R&D process. As these and other examples have shown, companies can find a lot of life after middle age. The key is to have the right attitude. You can’t be a kid again, but we’ve mapped out some of the roads that could lead to renewal.
The magic formula for keeping innovation healthy in a mature industry is knowing there is no magic formula. If staying young and strong were easy, we’d live in a different world. There will always be a place for line extensions backed with big campaigns and for being first to market. But it’s important to make sure when you’re dipping into your own fountain that your competitor isn’t standing right beside you with a siphon.


all of The Unique Avantage by Alexander Kandybin and Surbhee Grover