P&G, Coke Claim Most Innovative Title

In April, BusinessWeek released its Top 50 Most Innovative Companies for 2009. Among the companies on this list, six consumer goods (CG) companies made the cut by driving key innovative processes, products and customer experiences.

So, who was the first CG company on the list? The Procter & Gamble Company, which arguably may come as no surprise to most considering that the CEO of the $83.5 billion company has written a book called "The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation."

"I think it's more essential to innovate through a recession, and certainly what we're trying to do at P&G is to continue to bring sustaining and even disruptive new brands and products for our consumers, to make their lives better, to offer them a little more value," said P&G Chairman and CEO A.G. Lafley in an interview conducted by the Nightly Business Report in April 2008.

 
More recently, he revealed what he believes you need in order to innovate in a BusinessWeek article: "You need creativity and invention, but until you can connect that creativity to the customer in the form of a product or a service that meaningfully changes their lives, I would argue you don't yet have innovation."

Other CG companies featured on BusinessWeek's Top 50 Most Innovative Companies list include:

 

 

For more information on this report and to see the full list, click here.