Technology

In the world of consumer goods, Amway is a rare success story. The company's direct-selling model has been nothing but successful, but this didn't come about by chance. Armed with a structered, yet flexible product development process, and growing network of external partners, Amway and its Open Innovation Team, is well on its way to turning a good business into a great business.

CGT Editor Alarice Rajagopal gives you a sneak peek into the trends and topics discussed in this month's issue.

While traditional companies are still looking at improving traditional forecasting technologies and improving the rules for forecast consumption, Lora Cecere takes a different stance for managing the lifecycle.

Energizer announced the names of the two new companies upon separation, targeted for July 1, 2015. The Personal Care Division will be named Edgewell Personal Care and the Household Product Division will retain the Energizer name and logo.

Using the entrepreneurial spirit of a smaller company, General Mills acted on an intuition, an outside partnership and direct consumer interaction, for a quick innovation with a big impact.

Team members and partners who come with different backgrounds, experiences, attitudes, and ways of thinking, all contribute to a dynamic culture, robust knowledge bank, and innovative thinking.

Campbell's shared its new cost reduction plan as well as an initiative to simplify its organization structure to improve agility in the marketplace. The company expects these to generate annual cost savings of $200 million over a three-year period.

As the consumer goods industry rushes to get closer to the shopper, both competitively and collaboratively, emerging technologies start to take hold, and we find ways to bring sophistication and data, data, data! to existing processes.