INNOVATION UK117 The London Innovation Centre is the innovative force behind many of Procter & Gamble Co's most successful products Site for success Situated in rural Surrey, P& G's London Innovation Cen-tre ( LINC) is a hub of truly original thinking that unites over 800 employees from 41 different nationalities. Specialising in personal beauty, oral care, personal health care, hair colour and prestige products, LINC provides a range of goods and services that ensure it remains at the cutting edge of global innovation. The LINC site is currently undergoing a three- year reno-vation programme that will cut its energy consumption by 38%, making it one of the UK's greenest innovation centres. And while work continues on the exterior, the interior remains a hive of activity. Take skin care. Understanding skin science and chemistry has transformed the market, with P& G leading the way with innovative analysis procedures and imaging tech-niques. Another core innovation discipline at LINC is fine fra-grance creation & development. Here, art and science come together to deliver some of the world's greatest fragrances from an ever- increasing range of natural and synthetic oils. And the innovation doesn't stop at product & package development. Counterfeit products account for 3% of all goods sold globally, ris-ing to 20% of the total in China, and LINC is at the forefront of fighting the fraud. Its analysis and detection department is a co- ordinated glo-bal multi- functional group that is part of LINC's innovation efforts. It uses a combination of high- tech equipment and chemicals to detect counterfeit goods, as well as devis-ing a range of portable detection products that can be used in ports, shops, and so on. The secret to P& G's success in these markets, though, is collaboration. Its skin imaging techniques, for example, would not exist without the use of technology used in both the medical and automotive industries, while out-side fragrance oil- making houses provide the building blocks necessary to create new and ever- more exciting fragrances. Thanks to P& G's Connect + Develop ethos, agreements with third parties across a range of industries have been forged at LINC, unlocking a wealth of innovation. LINC has proved that cross- corporate collaboration is the key to innovative success. Open Innovation The London Innovation Centre Left: Lacoste Challenge Left: First Defence hand foam above: Olay total effects

118INNOVATION UKINNOVATION ' We are looking for win- win partnerships' Sumit Bhasin, Site Director at the London Innovation Centre, explains how collaboration is at the heart of the LINC's innovative ethos. 1 When and why was the LINC established? The LINC was established in the mid 1980s. We actually came here through the acquisition of Richardson Vicks in 1986 and with that came some big brands - such as Vicks, Olay, Pantene and Vidal Sassoon - which are billion- dollar- brands today. This site used to be Richard-son Vicks' major health and beauty innovation centre for the European and Middle East region. Its acquisition gave P& G the opportunity to show that it was serious about both beauty care and over- the- counter health care. 2 What is the purpose of the LINC? LINC is one of P& G's major global innovation centres, providing an innovation hub for some of P& G's global core categories, as well as being the major centre of inno-vation for products to be sold in the Europe, the Middle East and Africa. One of the unique things about the centre is that it is multi- category and multi- disciplinary - it is one of the few centres within P& G that has over five different categories contained on one site. And with our different functions - obviously largely R& D, but also Engineering, Product Supply and Marketing - we have a unique opportunity to connect and develop both exter-nally and internally, where we strive for connections to create new seeds of innovation. 3. What are the major product categories covered at LINC? The major categories here are Personal Beauty, Oral Care, Hair Colour, Personal Health Care and Prestige. 4. Are there any particular technologies that the Centre specialises in? We specialise in a multitude of technologies. For exam-ple, we went into the prestige business about 15 years ago, when we had less than $ 80m in sales. Today we have grown that to just under $ 3bn making us one of the world's leading fragrance companies, largely by establish-ing breakthrough holistic innovation capabilities, which included a core competency of how to develop innovative fragrances and packaging - and this is the centre that leads it for the world. We also have a real expertise in skin care; a lot of our skin care developments, from meas-urement to formulation technologies, form the basis of P& G's global platforms. Some of the well- known beauty brands, such as Clairol Perfect 10, had a lot of their core technology developed at the LINC. In addition, products such as Vick's First Defence and Crest Pro- Health were developed here. 5. What is the future vision for LINC within P& G's Open Innovation philosophy? The LINC lends itself to being P& G's premier Connect and Develop innovation centre. If you look at its vicinity to London, for example, there is a huge science and tal-ent pool available within the area in start- ups alone. In addition, London is at the centre of trends that a lot of our beauty care products cater for. The future vision for LINC is to become a major source of innovation growth, or what we call disproportionate innovation growth, for the company and we see that happening in several ways: » We have one of the most diverse populations on site here, with over 41 different nationalities. We consider ourselves as unconventional, resourceful and visionary, and we use our innovative and enthusiastic approach to create new solutions. We are very much externally focused. In categories such as prestige products well over 80- 85 % of our innovations come from connecting with the outside world. This is similar in other categories at LINC. We see ourselves as a major player in P& G's innovation strategy. INNOVATION UK118Open Innovation The London Innovation Centre Above: ValentinoAbove: Vicks vitality booster