P&G Now Using AI Extensively

My former employer,  where we experimented with AI methods in the 80s ....  Franz  

P&G turns to AI to create digital manufacturing of the future

Feature, Sep 30, 2022

Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation,Manufacturing Industry

The consumer goods multinational company, with help from Microsoft, is adopting the industrial internet of things, digital twin, AI, and machine learning to transform manufacturing at scale.

Vittorio Cretella, CIO, The Procter & Gamble Co.

CREDIT: THE PROCTER & GAMBLE CO.

Over the past 184 years, The Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G) has grown to become one of the world’s largest consumer goods manufacturers, with worldwide revenue of more than $76 billion in 2021 and more than 100,000 employees. Its brands are household names, including Charmin, Crest, Dawn, Febreze, Gillette, Olay, Pampers, and Tide.

In summer 2022, P&G sealed a multiyear partnership with Microsoft to transform P&G’s digital manufacturing platform. The partners say they will create the future of digital manufacturing by leveraging the industrial internet of things (IIoT), digital twin, data, and AI to bring products to consumers faster and increase customer satisfaction, all while improving productivity and reducing costs.

“The main purpose of our digital transformation is to help create superior solutions for daily problems of millions of consumers around the world, while generating growth and value for all stakeholders,” says Vittorio Cretella, CIO of P&G. “We do that by leveraging data, AI, and automation with agility and scale across all dimensions of our business, accelerating innovation and increasing productivity in everything we do.”

The digital transformation of P&G’s manufacturing platform will enable the company to check product quality in real-time directly on the production line, maximize the resiliency of equipment while avoiding waste, and optimize the use of energy and water in manufacturing plants. Cretella says P&G will make manufacturing smarter by enabling scalable predictive quality, predictive maintenance, controlled release, touchless operations, and manufacturing sustainability optimization. These things have not been done at this scale in the manufacturing space to date, he says.

Smart manufacturing at scale

The company has already undertaken pilot projects in Egypt, India, Japan, and the US that use Azure IoT Hub and IoT Edge to help manufacturing technicians analyze insights to create improvements in the production of baby care and paper products.

For instance, the production of diapers involves assembling many layers of material at high speed with great precision to ensure optimal absorbency, leak protection, and comfort. The new IIoT platform uses machine telemetry and high-speed analytics to continuously monitor production lines to provide early detection and prevention of potential issues in the material flow. This, in turn, improves cycle time, reduces network losses, and ensures quality, all while improving operator productivity.

P&G is also piloting the use of IIoT, advanced algorithms, machine learning (ML), and predictive analytics to improve manufacturing efficiencies in the production of paper towels. P&G can now better predict finished paper towel sheet lengths.

Smart manufacturing at scale is a challenge. It requires taking data from equipment sensors, applying advanced analytics to derive descriptive and predictive insights, and automating corrective actions. The end-to-end process requires several steps, including data integration and algorithm development, training, and deployment. It also involves large amounts of data and near real-time processing.

“The secret to scale is to lessen complexity by providing common components at the edge and in the Microsoft cloud that engineers can work with to deploy diverse use cases into a specific manufacturing environment — without having to create everything from scratch,” Cretella says.

Using Microsoft Azure as the foundation, Cretella says P&G will now be able to digitize and integrate data from more than 100 manufacturing sites around the world and enhance AI, ML, and edge computing services for real-time visibility. In turn, this will enable P&G employees to analyze production data and leverage AI to support decisions that drive improvement and exponential impact.

“Accessing this level of data, at scale, is rare within the consumer goods industry,” Cretella says.

Data and AI as digital fundamentals

P&G took the first steps in its AI journey more than five years ago. It has moved past what Cretella calls the “experimentation phase” with scaled solutions and increasingly sophisticated AI applications. Data and AI have since become central to the company’s digital strategy.

“We leverage AI across all dimensions of our business to predict outcomes and increasingly to prescribe actions through automation,” Cretella says. “We have applications in our product innovation space, where thanks to modelling and simulation we can shorten the lead time to develop a new formula from months to weeks; in the way we engage and communicate with our consumers, using AI to deliver to each of them brand messages delivered at their right time, right channel, and with the right content.”

P&G also uses predictive analytics to help ensure the company’s products are available at retail partner “where, when, and how consumers shop for them,” Cretella says, adding that P&G engineers also use Azure AI to ensure quality control and equipment resilience on the production line.

While P&G’s recipe for scale relies on technology, including investment in a scalable data and AI environment centered on cross-functional data lakes, Cretella says P&G’s secret sauce is the skills of hundreds of talented data scientists and engineers who understand the company’s business inside and out. To that end, P&G’s future is about embracing automation of AI, which will allow its data engineers, data scientists, and ML engineers to spend less time on manual, labor-intensive tasks so they can focus on the areas where they add value.

“Automation of AI also allows us to deliver with consistent quality and to manage bias and risk,” he says, adding that automating AI will also “make these capabilities accessible to an increasingly larger number of employees, thus making the benefits of AI pervasive across the company.”

The power of people

Another element to achieving agility at scale is P&G’s “composite” approach to building teams in the IT organization. P&G balances the organization between central teams and teams embedded in its categories and markets. The central teams create enterprise platforms and technology foundations, while the embedded teams use those platforms and foundations to build digital solutions that address their units’ specific business opportunities. Cretella also notes that the company prioritizes insourcing talent, especially in areas such as data science, cloud management, cybersecurity, software engineering, and DevOps.

To accellrate P&G’s transformation, Microsoft and P&G have created a Digital Enablement Office (DEO) staffed by experts from both organizations. The DEO will serve as an incubator to create high-priority business scenarios in the areas of product manufacturing and packaging processes that P&G can implement across the company. Cretella considers it as more of a project management office than a center of excellence.

“It coordinates all the efforts of the different innovation teams that work on business use cases and ensures an efficient scaled deployment of proven solutions that develop,” he says.

Cretella has some advice for CIOs trying to drive digital transformation in their organizations: “First, be driven and find your energy in the passion for the business and how to apply technology to create value. Second, be equipped with tons of learning agility and genuine curiosity to learn. Last, invest in people — your teams, your peers, your bosses — because technology alone does not change things; people do.”   .... '   (more)  

Colgate Advertising as a Space Hygiene Company

Spent a considerable amount of time working at Procter & Gamble,  often a competitor to Colgate,  so its interesting to see this product connection with arch competitor Colgate.   How well will an increased link to NASA act to promote product?: 

How Colgate-Palmolive, and NASA and an astronaut are teaming for demonstrating better space hygiene results.    Attention getting idea, but how well will this work?       

P&G and Microsoft Collaborate for Advanced Digital Manufacturing

My former employer goes for advanced digital manufacturing with Microsoft.

P&G and Microsoft co-innovate to build the future of digital manufacturing

Microsoft company logo.  (PRNewsFoto/Microsoft Corp.) (PRNewsfoto/Microsoft Corp.)

NEWS PROVIDED BY  Microsoft Corp.   Vis Cision

Microsoft technology empowers scalability for consumer products leader

CINCINNATI and REDMOND, Wash., June 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On Wednesday, The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG) (P&G) and Microsoft Corp. announced a new multiyear collaboration that will leverage the Microsoft Cloud to help create the future of digital manufacturing at P&G. ... 

A multiyear collaboration that will leverage the Microsoft Cloud to help create the future of digital manufacturing at P&G

The two companies will co-innovate to accelerate and expand P&G's digital manufacturing platform and leverage the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to bring products to consumers faster, increase customer satisfaction and improve productivity to reduce costs. 

"Together with Microsoft, P&G intends to make manufacturing smarter by enabling scalable predictive quality, predictive maintenance, controlled release, touchless operations and manufacturing sustainability optimization — which has not been done at this scale in the manufacturing space to date," said P&G CIO Vittorio Cretella. "At P&G, data and technology are at the heart of our business strategy and are helping create superior consumer experiences. This first-of-its-kind co-innovation agreement will digitize and integrate data to increase quality, efficiency and sustainable use of resources to help deliver those superior experiences."

With Microsoft Azure as the foundation, the new collaboration marks the first time that P&G can digitize and integrate data from more than 100 manufacturing sites around the world and enhance its AI, machine learning and edge computing services for real-time visibility. This will enable P&G employees to analyze production data and leverage artificial intelligence to immediately make decisions that drive improvement and exponential impact. Accessing this level of data, at scale, is rare within the consumer goods industry.

P&G selected Microsoft as its preferred cloud provider to build the future of digital manufacturing based on a four-year history of successfully working together on data and AI. The new collaborative effort will:

Allow for better utilization of data, AI capabilities and digital twins technology.

Optimize manufacturing environmental sustainability efforts.

Increase workforce efficiency and productivity.

"We are excited to help P&G accelerate its digital manufacturing platform using Microsoft Azure, AI and IIoT to accommodate volatility in the consumer products industry with innovative, agile solutions that can easily scale based on market conditions," said Judson Althoff, Microsoft's chief commercial officer. "Our partnership will further P&G's growth and business transformation through digital technology that seamlessly connects people, assets, workflow and business processes that promote resiliency."

Empowering technicians and advancing operations with IIoT

P&G is already innovating and using Azure IoT Hub and IoT Edge to help manufacturing technicians analyze insights with greater speed and efficiency, creating improvements in the production of its baby care and paper products with pilot projects happening in Egypt, India, Japan and the United States.  .... 

Procter & Gamble Bets on a BeautySphere Metaverse

My long-ago employer.  We played with early capabilities like the metaverse then, but not strongly consumer facing ones.   Much of that experiment was recorded here.  Yes I am surprised. it is unexpected.  Not really the world of their typical customers. Or are those consumers  moving there?    Still don't see it, but a big bet it is.  Please don't screw it up.  Call me if you would like to discuss.

Procter & Gamble is placing a big bet on the metaverse to support its suite of brands Creative and a technical leaders from the consumer goods giant share their reasoning for pursuing the metaverse, which they say they see as a learning opportunity.  A BeautySphere.   Following.  

Procter & Gamble is placing a big bet on the metaverse to support its suite of brands  By  Aman Kidwai         May 25, 2022 6:35 PM EDT  in Fortune.

It may be surprising that a 180-year-old maker of consumer products for the physical world is spending significant time and resources on the metaverse. But as leaders from Procter & Gamble explain, the main purpose of their exploration is to find new ways to interact with prospective customers and add value for them and retail partners.

How is success achieved through transformation

At the Fortune Brainstorm Design conference on Tuesday, Phil Duncan, chief design officer at Procter & Gamble, said “any time that there's a place where consumers are gravitating toward,” P&G is looking “to grow our businesses and, obviously, win the hearts and minds of consumers.”

“We're stepping into this environment to learn and understand how engagement really matters with consumers and ultimately create value,” he later added.

The consumer goods giant is one of many Fortune 500 companies making its mark in the metaverse, an online world where companies and people can maintain avatars, spaces, and other virtual presences. One project P&G has used the metaverse for is to replicate the experience of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), a premier industry event, during the pandemic. The company made a similar push to put brand activations and experiences from its 2020 Tokyo Olympics sponsorship into the metaverse.

“The pandemic situation made it a bit more real for us to put it in practice and have a big, open mind to try them,” said Ioana Matei, head of emerging/immersive technologies at Procter & Gamble. Duncan credited Matei as his “reverse mentor” for this project, due to his lack of experience in this arena in other design initiatives he’s led.  ... ' 

For more of an inside Procter & Gamble Perspective.

Procter & Gamble and Microsoft: Data and Digital Transformation

Microsoft talks about how they work with key customers.   Notably with my former employer, where I worked on many related problems, and can agree that using data effectively was well understood to be key.  Fairly good detail here about using Microsoft Azure.

For Procter & Gamble, data is at the heart of digital transformation

August 17, 2021   Microsoft

For more than 180 years, Procter & Gamble (P&G) has built a thriving business by challenging norms and delighting consumers. Its range of household products, from toothpaste and soap to paper towels and laundry detergent, can be found in millions of homes—in nearly every country on Earth.

True to its innovative nature, P&G sees data and algorithms as a way to constructively disrupt how it operates, leading to growth. P&G developed a multicloud-driven data strategy—and data culture—that informs every decision the business makes to fuel its future success.

In order for P&G to understand and best serve consumers, we need to drive a data-enabled culture and operationalize algorithms into every major business decision. 

Guy Peri: Chief Data & Analytics Officer, P&G

“The way we approach excellence as a company is to get the right product, the right package, the right communication, and the right in-store execution,” says Guy Peri, Chief Data & Analytics Officer for P&G. “Pretty much everything about how we do that with our customers and the consumers who buy our products is changing—and data and algorithms are central to staying ahead of that change.”

Lots of data, but out of reach

Given its broad scope and long history, P&G had numerous data points about its business, including what drives sales and product preferences. But the data resided in geographically dispersed silos, and P&G’s legacy systems couldn’t link the hundreds of disparate data types to gain collective insights.

P&G sought a platform that could unlock those silos and provide a single view for business users. At the same time, company leaders realized that they needed to foster a data-driven culture—a growth mindset that put data and analytics at the forefront. AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics were all seen as crucial to becoming a true digital leader.

P&G found what it needed with the powerful suite of Microsoft Azure data and AI solutions, such as Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Lake Storage, and Power BI. “Azure is helping optimize the impact of digitization across Procter & Gamble, from democratizing AI with no-code features to embedded capabilities in Power BI,” says Peri. “We appreciated the scale, flexibility, and analytical muscle of Azure. The stack can go up and down depending on our business needs. It also gives us leading data and algorithm capabilities with both the Azure Synapse back-end and front-end Power BI tools.”

For us, only two variables are important: performance and scale. Can we scale at a cost-effective rate? With Azure and the co-innovation we did together, we’re able to get positive outcomes on both fronts. 

Guy Peri: Chief Data & Analytics Officer, P&G

With these scalable, dynamic data solutions, P&G is bringing the power of data to bear on three key challenges: creating a resilient supply chain, improving retail execution, and delivering superior products and packaging.

A more resilient supply chain

P&G data scientists and business analysts combine information from existing and new data sources inside the data lake to create predictions that help ensure consumers can get the products they need, when they need them.

Better retail execution

P&G is using granular analytics capabilities to ensure that retail partners are putting the right products and right in-store displays in front of consumers. 

Superior products and packaging

P&G is using data and analytics in its products and packages to shift from a point-in-time assessment to a real-time, sense-and-respond approach. A key component of this shift is a global architecture with automated collection of data to fuel analysis that uncovers insights, speeds the innovation process, and determines manufacturability and cost optimization.

“We need to act with agility to be competitive with the fast startups in the world,” says Peri. “But we also need to act with precision to leverage our scale for competitive advantage. Data algorithms help us do both. So, the faster we can bring data insights to our decision makers, the more competitive we’ll be.”

Neighborhood analytics and smart selling

In addition to gaining important insights at a global level, P&G has been able to do the same at a local level. One initiative, called “Neighborhood Analytics,” helps P&G understand at a local level how consumers shop and what they need. By combining external and internal data sources, the company can more effectively partner with retail customers to expand specific categories for consumers.

A second initiative, called “Smart Selling,” gives P&G insight into what its distributors are doing in developing markets. By using big data and AI, the company can help distributors be precise when ordering products. “COVID-19 is a great example of where we’ve been able to use these tools to be much more precise,” says Peri. “We overlaid our Azure analytics capability with COVID-19 data and then understood exactly where we had the biggest risk of out-of-stock opportunities to address or where we anticipated the need for inventory.”

Creating a data-driven culture

Beyond specific use cases, P&G is also using Azure to create a strong data culture that makes employees aware of the power of data and how to use it every day.

The ease of use with Azure fosters P&G’s data culture from the technology side, making it easy for employees to understand data, manipulate it, and use it to inform major decisions. These decisions, in turn, positively affect P&G’s ability to better serve consumers and constructively disrupt how the company operates.

“Our data culture is a combination of data technology, work processes, and reward systems,” says Peri. “If we have only one or two of those things, we’re not going to deliver the outcomes we want. We have partnered closely with our line business leadership and our function leadership to really transform in a way that constructively disrupts how we operate.”

A foundation for the future

Looking ahead, P&G will connect more data types and find new ways to delight its customers—and the consumers who fill their homes with P&G products. And it will continue to strengthen its data culture, operationalizing algorithms into key decision processes across the company. Procter & Gamble may be 183 years old, but its future has never been brighter. ...

Very few vendors can serve our needs at scale, given how much data we’re processing. Azure Synapse Analytics can, and Microsoft’s vision on how to scale is among the best in the industry. 

Guy Peri: Chief Data & Analytics Officer ....

Saving Capitalism

A podcast of interest,  based on my employers of the past,  plan to listen to.

First He Saved Unilever. Now He Wants to Save Capitalism.

HBR IdeaCast

Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, led a dazzling career in consumer goods, from Procter & Gamble to Nestlé to the British multinational. His experience fending off a hostile takeover bid taught him that the doctrine of shareholder capitalism is wrong. He believes there’s a better way of doing business, one that embraces all stakeholders — not just stockholders — and improves the environment. He cofounded the consultancy IMAGINE to further sustainable goals, and he shares his advice for the next generation of leaders. With Andrew Winston, Polman wrote the new book “Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More than They Take”.

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hbr-ideacast/id152022135?i=1000537615229

More on Eastman Procter Partnership

 Was linked to additional information: 

Procter & Gamble partners with Eastman to reduce virgin plastic use By Julia Wray in CosmeticsBusiness

The companies will collaborate to expand infrastructure to boost plastic recycling rates in the US

FMCG giant Procter & Gamble has pledged to use materials made by Eastman’s molecular recycling technologies to reduce its use of virgin plastic from fossil fuels.

P&G will also collaborate with the specialty materials business on advocacy initiatives aimed at reducing the reliance on virgin plastic and enabling a circular economy.

Eastman’s Eastman Renew materials are made via molecular recycling technologies which use waste plastic that would otherwise go to landfill.

"Eliminating waste plastic from our environment is a complex global challenge that requires a comprehensive, collaborative approach across the entire plastics lifecycle," Lee Ellen Drechsler, Procter & Gamble Senior Vice President of R&D, commented.

"P&G is taking a thoughtful approach to addressing the collection, processing, revitalisation and reuse of materials.  ... ' 

Molecular Recycling with Eastman at P&G

 Most interesting as I worked in this in the future analysis of this space at P&G.  Good to see the continued advances made.

Eastman molecular recycling technologies to advance Procter & Gamble packaging goals 

Innovative Eastman Renew materials reduce reliance on virgin plastic packaging

KINGSPORT, Tenn. and CINCINNATI, Aug. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Eastman (NYSE: EMN) announced that it has entered an agreement with Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) to further accelerate the transformation of plastic packaging and collaborate on recycling solutions to enable a circular economy. P&G will use Eastman Renew materials in select products and packaging, supporting both companies' goals to reduce the use of virgin plastic from fossil resources. Additionally, the companies will collaborate on advocacy initiatives aimed at reducing reliance on virgin plastic and enabling a circular economy for many products people depend on daily. 

Lee Ellen Drechsler, senior vice president of R&D at Procter & Gamble.

Scott Ballard, division president of Plastics at Eastman.

Procter & Gamble

"Eliminating waste plastic from our environment is a complex global challenge that requires a comprehensive, collaborative approach across the entire plastics lifecycle. P&G is taking a thoughtful approach to addressing the collection, processing, revitalization, and reuse of materials. That's why we selected Eastman's molecular recycling technologies which enable former waste to be transformed into useful products," explained Lee Ellen Drechsler, Procter & Gamble Senior Vice President of R&D. 

Eastman Renew materials are made via Eastman's molecular recycling technologies using waste plastic that, without this technology, would end up in landfills. These advanced recycling technologies are a complement to traditional recycling, expanding the types and amounts of plastics that can be recycled. This gives materials an extended useful life and diverts plastic waste from landfills or the environment. 

In addition to packaging innovation, P&G and Eastman will collaborate on initiatives addressing the infrastructure needed to increase plastic recycling rates. These efforts will complement the current recycling streams in the United States and enable additional recycling options for consumers eager to help solve the plastic waste problem. The two companies will work to expand the collection of hard-to-recycle plastics, further diverting waste from landfills. These expanded recycling streams will be used to create new materials via Eastman's molecular recycling technologies.  ... ' 

Finalists for P&G Innovation Challenge

 P&G Ventures: 

Procter & Gamble : P&G Ventures Announces Four Finalists in Latest Innovation Challenge

06/24/2021 | 01:31pm EDT

CINCINNATI, June 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- P&G Ventures, the early stage startup studio within P&G (NYSE:PG), has announced the four finalists in its latest Innovation Challenge, which will be held online on Wednesday, July 14 at 1pm ET.

These four finalists were chosen from a competitive pool of applicants whose products are solving consumer pain points in categories such as active aging, safe and effective germ protection, non-toxic home and garden, as well as other consumer packaged goods spaces where P&G doesn't currently compete.

The finalists will pitch their businesses to a panel of expert judges who will determine the winner. The panel includes Alex Betancourt, Vice President, P&G Ventures; Anu Duggal, Founding Partner, Female Founders Fund; Mike Jensen, Senior Vice President of Research & Development, P&G Ventures; Michael Olmstead, Chief Revenue Officer, Plug and Play; and Clarence Wooten, Co-founder and General Partner, Revitalize Venture Studio.

The winner will receive a $10,000 prize and the opportunity to continue developing their product with P&G Ventures.

The 2021 P&G Ventures Innovation Challenge finalists are:

NanoSpun Technologies, based in Los Altos, CA and represented by Founder & CEO Ohad Bendror (Bendas), develops and produces disruptive, first-of-its-kind, live-active biological tissues for skincare, medical and industrial applications.

One Skin, based in San Francisco, CA and represented by Co-Founder Juliana Carvalho, is the first topical supplement designed to extend your skin's lifespan on a molecular level, improving skin health and strength, giving users youthful skin for longer.

Ready, Set, Food!, based in Los Angeles, CA and represented by CEO & Co-Founder Daniel Zakowski, is a ground-breaking solution to early allergen introduction, making it easy for families to follow new food allergy prevention medical guidelines.

Wellesley Pharmaceuticals, based in Newtown Grant, PA and represented by CEO & President David Dill, designed Nocturol™ – a pill designed to provide 8 hours of protection for those who suffer from frequent bathroom trips overnight.  ..... ' 

Laundry in Space

 Former employer activity.   Not new, recall some similar activity in the 70s.

How do you do laundry in space? NASA taps P&G to find solution

By Andy Brownfield  –  Staff Reporter, Cincinnati Business Courier

Dec 9, 2020, 7:16am EST

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has tapped Procter & Gamble for a project that takes the consumer goods company back to its roots, albeit in a space-age way.

NASA has signed a contract with P&G (NYSE: PG) to develop the first detergent for washing clothes in space. Currently, astronauts' dirty laundry is packaged up and ejected alongside other waste in a capsule to burn in the atmosphere, or returned to Earth as garbage.

It's not just laundry though. According to the contract between NASA and P&G, the space agency wants Procter & Gamble to create and improve the best methods for cleaning clothing and crew quarters for space exploration missions. .... " 

Single Use Face Masks

Former employer tech activity

Circular economy for plastics

Fraunhofer, SABIC, and Procter & Gamble join forces in closed-loop recycling pilot project for single-use face-masks

Press Release / June 16, 2021

The Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Circular Plastics Economy CCPE and its Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT have developed an advanced recycling process for used plastics. The pilot project with SABIC and Procter & Gamble serves to demonstrate the feasibility of closed-loop recycling for single-use facemasks.  ... ' 

P&G Positions for Inflation

My former and longtime employer writes, on the threat of Inflation Challenges.  With innovation. 

P&G Is Positioned for Inflation Challenges

Procter & Gamble Vice Chairman and COO Jon Moeller tells investors it has winning products and strategies in post-Covid world.

Retail prices soared last month, lifting US inflation rates to a 13-month high, according to the Consumer Price Index. But Procter & Gamble COO Jon Moeller said the company is well-positioned to overcome this latest headwind, just as P&G thrived during the Covid-19 pandemic. Speaking at a Deutsche Bank investor conference, Moeller noted that P&G added 40 points to its global market share last year and e-commerce sales are up 50% year-to-date. He credited gains made pre-Covid, during Covid and now, post-Covid (in the US and China) to having the right strategy, the right portfolio and the right organizational structure.

"Despite near term challenges, we are not changing the strategy, We are doubling down and moving forward," said Moeller. "This has been working in driving maket growth. That is the most important mid- to longer term."

He acknowledged that a global recovery won't occur until 2023 or 2024, when enough vaccines can be made to cover the world's entire population. Virus spikes in India and Brazil will delay the global recovery and yet, P&G's market share remains strong in both countries. 

"Predicting year-on-year growth is difficult," he said, acknowledging that the company's two largest markets, US and China, accounted for nearly all P&G growth in the current fiscal year. "Now we have the headwind of rising material and transportation costs, but we will get through this rough patch."

Product innovations will help. New Tide and Ariel formulations provide more cleaning power at lower temperatures. The Oral-B iO Series electric toothbrush promises 100% healthier gums in one week and six times more plaque removal along the gumline. P&G is rolling out plastic-free Gillette razor packaging in France with plans to expand in the US this fall. In dish care, Dawn Powerwash sales reached $150 million in its first year. In hair care, Pantene is adding premium formulas like 3-Minute Miracle and Quench Intensive Shot Mask.

Retail partners like what they see. Procter & Gamble was ranked the No. 1 supplier in the US for the sixth consecutive year. 

"We are driving constructive disruption by acting with the speed and agility of a startup," Moeller insisted.

We'll have more from Moeller in The 2021 Top 50 article in the July issue of Happi.  ...."

P&G Admits What Worked, What Didn't in Pandemic

Some rare inside information re Digital details from my former colleagues at P&G.  Recall I have mentioned here that P&G was an early pioneer in AI based methods.  Its good you can admit to what did not work.  Lets you adjust your directions and methods in the future. 

P&G's Benjamin Spiegel Admits What He Got Wrong

The global chief digital officer also discussed AI, 'maskne,' virtual influencers and the lipstick effect.

By Paul Hiebert   in AdWeek

Benjamin Spiegel, global chief digital officer for Procter & Gamble’s beauty segment, is not afraid to admit that some changes in consumer behavior he thought might occur during the pandemic … well, did not occur.

“There were a lot of things that we assumed would happen early on that, in the end, didn’t quite pan out,” noted Spiegel while speaking at Adweek’s Elevate: AI summit.

One was an expected boom in direct-to-consumer shopping. Instead, Spiegel explained, retailers got creative and have updated their click-and-collect and last-mile delivery options. “That was a big one for me that I got totally wrong,” he said.

Another prediction was that people would struggle with working at home—that the ideas, creativity and collaboration just wouldn’t be there. While remote work certainly has its challenges, Spiegel said people have shown resilience and embraced new technology that enables workers to get the job done.

Spiegel said the company has begun thinking about campaigns as “always on,” as opposed to initiatives that start and stop. “The time[s] of day where people make decisions [and] consume content have definitely changed,” he said.

P&G has also tracked the popularity of certain search terms, such as “maskne” (i.e. acne caused by wearing a face mask), and responded with tailored messaging and educational content. Usually, trends come and go, Spiegel said, but trends during Covid-19 had a “big impact on how people thought about product and usage.”

The lipstick effect—the theory that shoppers still spend money on small indulgences during economic downturns—is still going strong during the pandemic, Spiegel said. For example, their research found that instead of buying a piece of clothing that costs $200, consumers would purchase a $40 beauty product.

“People went into saving money in certain places, but then they ended up spending more in other places,” he said.

For the quarter ending March 31, P&G’s beauty business, which includes the brands Olay, SK-II and Old Spice, saw net sales climb to $3.3 billion, up 9% compared to the same period in 2020.  ... '

Signal Analytics and Baby Care

I see some of my former employers are involved.   Platform for predictive demand forecasting based on marketing decisions is a good thing. 

Signals Analytics Launches AI-Driven Intelligence Platform for Booming Baby Care Market  in PRNewswire

Platform allows baby care brands to leverage wide dataset of consumer and market connected insights in near real time.

NEW YORK, May 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Signals Analytics, an AI-powered consumer and market intelligence platform, is adding Baby Care to its rapidly growing list of industry-specific offerings. Fresh off the heels of its successful Consumer Electronics and Apparel category launches earlier this year, the Baby Care expansion comes as demand for connected, external data and predictive analytics spikes in helping support cross-functional, insight-driven decision making.

Signals Analytics' new Baby Care solution offers a view into cross-market trends as well as category-specific insights for Baby Wipes & Diapers and Baby Personal Care, with a focus on Skin Care, Hair Care, and Body Hygiene - helping brands compete in this crowded sector. Pulling from over 13,000 external data sources -- spanning Instagram, Amazon, Target, and LexisNexis -- the platform will help fuel actionable go-to-market decisions in areas such as product innovation, pipeline prioritization, brand messaging, and marketing execution, to enable brand relevance and category share growth. 

Valued at $67 billion globally in 2020, the baby care market is expected to reach $88.7 billion by 2026, in part due to a rise in disposable parental income, older parental ages, and increased consumer awareness of baby hygiene. Historically, the market has been dominated by a few powerplayers, yet smaller, high-growth challenger brands are gaining momentum and market share. Ecommerce availability has leveled the playing field giving newer, more niche baby brands previously untapped exposure. With competition heating up and new products rolling out, it is imperative that brands have insight into what will drive new parents to purchase and understand the concerns they have top of mind. ... ' 

P&G Launches iLab 2021

Procter continues to work innovation:

PR NEWSWIRE: P&G launches iLab 2021 in partnership with the Singapore EDB to strengthen Singapore's innovation ecosystem

P&G launches iLab 2021 in partnership with the Singapore EDB to strengthen Singapore's innovation ecosystem

SINGAPORE, May 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG), in partnership with the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), today launched iLab 2021, a 3-day virtual innovation festival. The festival will see start-ups from Singapore and across the region come together to collaborate with P&G and develop innovations that can overcome real-world challenges faced in the areas of advertising, retail, and supply chain. Held at P&G's i-Singapore Digital Omni-Channel Center (i-SiDOC)  ,... " 

Procter Aims to Modernize TeleDentistry

Seems a novel play: 

Grin Closes $14M Round With P&G, Triventures, and SpringRock Ventures To Modernize Teledentistry at Scale

Grin closes $14M round from P&G (NYSE: PG), Triventures, and SpringRock Ventures to modernize teledentistry at scale across the United States.  ... " 

CPG Costs Rise in Pandemic

Seems like a need for analytical modeling of costs.  My former employer needs to step up to the  problem.

Price hikes on the horizon for P&G as material costs rise

In Reuters: 

Procter & Gamble Co (PG.N) said on Tuesday it would raise prices of certain products in the United States to offset rising costs that were already weighing on its fourth quarter, after reporting a better-than-expected quarterly result.

The Cincinnati-based company joins a growing list of consumer product makers hiking prices this year as they battle increasing costs for everything from transport to pulp and resin or edible oils and nuts.

P&G said since it gave its initial guidance for fiscal 2021 last year, costs had risen by $400 million, including after tax costs of $125 million for commodities that will largely hit the fourth quarter and $200 million in higher freight costs.... " 

P&G and Apple Examining Fingerprinting

Some of my former colleagues at work.    But is it narrowing our privacy further?

P&G Is Looking for Ways Around Apple's New Privacy Rules  in TheStreet

Procter & Gamble is testing an advertising technique that would allow for targeted ads, which Apple is looking to limit with its latest software update.

P&G is preparing for an era in which new tools and customer preferences limit the amount of data available to marketers, Dow Jones reported, citing sources.

The Cincinnati company is partnering with dozens of Chinese trade groups and tech firms working with the state-backed China Advertising Association to develop the new technique, which would use a technology called device fingerprinting. 

Dubbed CAID, the new advertising method is being tested via apps and gathers iPhone user data in order to target ads. 

The move is in response to a software update Apple is planning to roll out in the coming weeks that will require app users to opt in to whether they want their activity to be tracked across other companies' apps and websites.      ... ' 

Procter's Virtual CES Home of the Future

Recall that I originally established this blog to continue communications with P&G's 'Home of the future'. visitors in the middle 00's.  Linked directly to a store of the future. I often headed tours and discussions there, as part of a  team that managed that effort.  Often bringing in new technologies.  There are many posts about it in this blog.  It went away for a time, but now is roaring back with slightly different direction.  Smarter and Greener.  Will  aim to visit and report on it.

You can visit the current effort online at CES online, below is an intro through which you can get to the CES site.

Step Inside P&G’s Greener and Smarter Home of the Future

The CPG giant is hosting a virtual exhibit at CES 2021.    By Paul Herbert,  AdWeek

Even if people spend only half as such time at home in the coming years as they had throughout the majority of 2020, Procter & Gamble would still be in a better position than it was prior to the pandemic.

In October, the maker of household staples from laundry detergent to toilet paper reported $19.3 billion in quarterly net sales—a 9% increase compared to the same time last year, with each of its business segments seeing gains. Before Covid-19, growth had been in the mid-single digits.

“The biggest trend that we have seen is that there’s an elevated and heightened interest in cleaning, health and hygiene because people are spending more time at home,” said Marc Pritchard, P&G’s chief brand officer. 

No one doubts that the vaccine will get people out and about again. At the same time, multiple data sets suggest trends such as high unemployment, investments in household renovation and people’s preference to work remotely (at least some of the time) will continue to keep many of us home for a good while.   ... " 

Sanitizing the Ride

In BizJournals.com    By Andy Brownfield   

Cincinnati-based consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble is partnering with rideshare company Lyft on a new initiative to tackle vehicle cleanliness amid the coronavirus pandemic.

P&G Professional, the away-from-home division of Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), is providing Lyft with cleaning and disinfection products for drivers. The division also worked with Lyft and medical experts from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center to create a clean ride guide for sanitizing vehicles used in ridesharing.

The guide recommends the use of Spic and Span Disinfecting All Purpose Spray and Glass Cleaner as well as Microban 24 Professional, to disinfect vehicles between riders. Both of those products have been approved by the Environmental Protection Agency on List N for use against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

The guide provides step-by-step guidance on how to sanitize their vehicles, from surfaces like door handles, seat belts, floor mats, steering wheels and central consoles to shared spaces like partitions.

The guide also requires drivers and riders to keep face coverings on throughout the ride, keep windows open and not ride if they have symptoms related to Covid-19.

P&G Professional conducted a survey that found that 37% of respondents reported being extremely concerned about Covid-19, but 70% said they would patronize a business if they know and trust the cleaning brands used by it.  .... 

Procter & Gamble, headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, is the creator and manufacturer of consumer brands like Always, Ariel, Bounty, Charmin, Dawn, Downy, Febreze, Gillette, Head & Shoulders, Olay, Pampers and Tide.    P&G is Cincinnati's second-largest public company by revenue, reporting $67.68 billion in 2019 earnings, according to Courier research. ...