Kraft Revamps Innovation Process, Bets Its Future On New Product Development

Five years ago, Kraft Foods Group was failing at new product development: 17 of the 19 products tested that year bombed. And 2009 wasn’t much different. Part of the problem was that the company lacked an ethos of innovation: ideas were small, the process lacked rigor and focus, there was little investment supporting product launches, and working in innovation was considered a dead-end job. But that situation is turning around. Kraft has outlined changes it is implementing to develop and support new products. It has created an “innovation playbook” that calls for increased investment in “fewer, bigger ideas” that receive a lot of company attention, according to Barry Calpino, who heads up the revamped  innovation process.