Diversity & Inclusion in practice: business creation
Thu 01 January 1970
, Philips
“Creating a new product demands insight, imagination and knowledge. Creating a new market and a new business demands all that and more – to dare to ask ‘stupid’ questions, for one, and to wonder ‘what if?’ without immediately ruling something out as impractical.”
It’s a lot to expect, so when Dorothea Seebode was asked to run the Lighting division’s Atmosphere Provider program, she felt the need to involve a diverse range of people.
This reflected not so much the goal– to identify growth opportunities that would make a reasonable impact on the division – as the approach: market-pull rather than technology-push. “The starting point was to look at needs and changes in society,” recalls Dorothea, now Sustainability Manager at Research. “Usually in Lighting, the product is the innovation. This time, we developed themes and from there defined products and current and future technologies that could fill out the themes.”
There was another factor at play too. By its nature, Atmosphere didn’t fit with Lighting’s typical emphasis on total cost of ownership. The three Atmosphere themes – Flexible Ambience in Shops, Light & Fragrance and Light Embedded in Furniture – would require a change in mindset to turn them into successful businesses.
Diversity in the broadest sense
“The program had the character of ‘disruptive innovation,’ explains Dorothea, “which is why I saw a need to create a diverse team. Disruptive innovation requires people with passion and who are open minded, because it is a journey into the unknown, so I looked for attitudes rather than just specific skill sets.”
This diversity was reflected in a number of ways. Gender, age and background played a part, but the main emphasis was on diversity in the sense of involving a wide range of people. This meant seeking out people from different business groups within Lighting and including people with engineering and operational backgrounds. And it included many people from other parts of Philips, including Market Intelligence, Research, Design, Corporate Alliances and Intellectual Property & Standards. “I wanted as much diversity as possible but with a similar attitude,” is how Dorothea describes it.
Many sources of inspiration
Today, she estimates that in the end, up to 70 people contributed internally – and only four of those were in the core team. They also talked with potential business partners, a professor, potential customers and conducted consumer research. “When we had a certain question, we would go and find somebody to answer it,” Dorothea says.
Design, for example, brought insights into people’s needs, how to capture them and how to translate needs into benefits. “They also helped us to visualize the ideas and connect with business partners. For example, we talked with shop designers, whereas Lighting would normally talk with facility management.”
Research contributed new technology options beyond the traditional lighting ballasts: “Software, connectivity and systems thinking.
Corporate Alliances helped us to talk with different kinds of companies than we normally would. Market Intelligence helped with consumer insights and IP&S helped us to build a patent position. We also talked to light designers and others in Lighting as they would have to take over the program when it was finished.”
As a result, of the three concepts, two made the cut. Light Embedded in Furniture, with a focus on bathrooms, and Flexible Ambience in Shops have now been moved into business groups and are being readied to go to market. The Light & Fragrance theme has been stopped.
Common language
Although the Atmosphere program has now ended, the knowledge acquired lives on in three foundation documents: one, for marketers, covering information about consumer and customer needs, one setting out common language – “Talking about light in relation to atmosphere-creation or talking to an interior decorator or designer is different from talking about light and total cost of ownership, or talking to a facility manager,” Dorothea points out – and one covering the process of translating Atmosphere into lighting solutions.
Like raising a child
“It is really important to acknowledge that many people contributed and that without the different perspectives Atmosphere would not have happened,” Dorothea says in conclusion. “If I think about it now, one prerequisite for diversity and inclusion is a feeling of wholeness. This is not a spiritual thing – it is really very practical. It is like raising a child. It needs different stimuli – food, movement, stimulation and so on – to make it grow.”
“The program had the character of ‘disruptive innovation, explains Dorothea, which is why I saw a need to create a diverse team.”
Print
