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Pillsbury Grands! Case Study By Selina (Veina) Yang, 756665 1. Describe the Pillsbury Grands! New product in terms of Need, Form and Technology. Pillsbury Grands! new product concept was to develop a new hot breakfast biscuit. In terms of Need, Form and Technology, the new product development team initiated the creation process with the Form. The form in this case was the new hot breakfast biscuit that would be “quick and easy” to prepare. The team then considered what technology was needed for the hot biscuit to be produced and manufactured. General Mills did not have the baking capacity or the expertise on biscuit toppings to facilitate the development of the new product. Therefore they collaborated with Better Baked Foods who did have the “technical capabilities” to jointly develop this new product. Lastly, once the product is launched, Pillsbury Grands! would have to research whether the new product is beneficial or desired (is it actually quick and easy to prepare or is it delicious/nutritious) by their customers in order to determine how successful the product is.

2. Design a crowdsourcing campaign for the Pillsbury Grands! new product concept. What questions would you ask your crowdsourcing network (customers and/or lead users? Please take into account the limitations of the crowdsourcing infrastructure in your answer. The idea for my crowdsourcing campaign for the new hot breakfast biscuit will be social media based. This medium will reach many new customers that may be unfamiliar with eating hot biscuits for breakfast, thus social media will be a good platform to advertise and market this new product. The idea is to ask customers to take a photo of what they put in between their hot biscuits every morning. Each photo uploaded will be attached to the hashtag #grandsbiscuitcreations. Every month, Pillsbury Grands! can pick a winner based on the most creative and delicious breakfast filling and provide them with some sort of incentive or perhaps even produce that flavour. This crowdsourcing campaign will keep customers engaged and at the same time spread the news about the new product as well as helping the company come up with new breakfast product ideas! Pillsbury Grands! will ask lead users how they would want the product to benefit them instead of how they can improve the product. In this instance, I could ask the customers what they want in a hot breakfast biscuit. E.g. they might want a biscuit that comes in an easy, travel friendly packaging that allows them to eat it on the go. Whilst crowd sourcing is a good platform to generate new ideas for the firm to improve the product, the improvements are likely to be miniscule adjustments. Therefore if the firm is only reliant on crowd sourcing to generate new ideas, it is unlikely they will be able to come up with innovative, new to the world products. Another limitation to

crowdsourcing is that typical consumers of the hot biscuit will be unlikely to come up with ideas that can be easily developed into the actual product for improvement. Thus, many ideas about new flavours or packaging ideas for the biscuit breakfast will be irrelevant and unpractical for real use. 3. New product implementations are performed via one of “buy, build or partner”. General Mills have decided on a “partner” approach to developing and producing Pillsbury Grands!. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages to partnering as opposed to the other two options? Advantages: When businesses are in a partnership, the time it takes to reach the market is the shortest and start up costs are low thus more capital is available for the business to develop their new product. Another advantage is that it reduces the risks in some aspect because losses will be split. Also, some companies, like General Mills, may they lack certain technological capabilities and expertise to develop their product without major disruptions. Thus partnering up with another company in the field of their lacked expertise can help them speed up the production process as well as reducing the costs associated with expanding their factory. If General Mills decides to build, it will take the longest time to launch into the market thus risking high development costs. Similarly, if there were to buy the acquisition and integration costs will be high. As a result, partnership is good for a low cost and low risk option. Disadvantages: Although reducing the financial risk is a positive, it also is a negative as each partner is jointly liable for the other partner’s debts. There is also a risk of disagreements on management styles or if one partner wants to withdraw from the project. As such, this approach holds the least control and provides the smallest profit opportunities when comparing to a buy or build strategy where there is more profit opportunity and control over the product.

4. What do you think are the three main challenges a product manager would face coordinating a new product initiative using an open innovation strategy? I think the top three challenges a manager has to deal with when using an open innovation strategy is making sure that the deal is structured in a way that captures the financial value of the actual project. It is challenging for managers to determine how to split financial profits rationally. Also making sure that their staff is trained in knowing what information to disclose and what information should remain confidential. This is because propriety secrets may be lost and it is very important to protect a firm’s intellectual property. The third challenge also ties into this notion in that theft of technology or poaching of top researchers is also a very big concern. Therefore it is crucial to be aware of the risks and seek ways to protect the organisation internally....