Business
Growth requires alignmentBrenda’s charge is to lead a growth mindset at Tekni-Plex, of which innovation is a part.Setting the stage for growth begins with alignment across the organization toward a common goal and vision. “The way you inform growth and momentum and get fuel is the tank is to be able to collect, gather and connect insights and thoughts that others can’t see through your unique lens,” she said. “And it’s tough to do that one person at a time, so when you can get the whole organization looking at it and seeing the opportunities and having the reasons to believe and motivation for change, you create an extremely powerful organization.” Growth through acquisition means looking at the bigger pictureTekni-Plex has grown through the acquisition of 14 companies in the last five years. The ability to integrate those acquisitions into the organization has been exceptional, Brenda said. The challenge is looking to the future: how do you leverage all of these capabilities that you’ve acquired? It involves getting the organization aligned not just to looking at those technologies, but the combination of technologies that exists under the Tekni-Plex umbrella. “We have to step back for a second and look at the lens a little differently,” she said. “The muscle that’s required to look at that in totality starts to think about the market needs and what the trends are and how you’re going to take all of those capabilities that are in your toolbox and uniquely bring that forward to the market.”Your brand needs to stay relevant as consumer choices changeConsumers have more choices today. They have more places to shop and access to more brands, and as a result every brand is struggling to stay relevant, she said. In packaging, sustainability is a big topic but it’s not enough to deliver solutions on its own. It’s sustainability plus something else. It might be sustainability and packaging strong enough to withstand e-commerce or protecting food for extended freshness. And the brand experience needs to be included in the mix. In creating packaging solutions, material sciences are a key component in innovating and offering customers better solutions. In a highly competitive and quickly changing environment, taking stock of all the assets you have, knowing what makes you special, understanding your value proposition, and what skills are necessary to address your customers’ needs in the future are critical to survival. Triangulation helps guide “skating toward the puck”Predicting consumer behavior, which was already undergoing huge changes even before the pandemic, requires what Brenda called triangulation. It’s looking at a number of factors including what will likely be important to consumers moving forward. During the pandemic, the desire for infection control made once-popular items such as reusable cups and shopping bags undesirable. Post-pandemic, will consumers once again place more emphasis on sustainability? Tekni-Plex looks at consumer behavior across an number of drivers and market segments – demographics and geographically -- to try to understand and comprehend what’s going to change.Innovation comes from withinThe idea of a growing organization and delivering on truly world-class innovation comes from within, Brenda said. It comes from a culture of being able to triangulate different capabilities and needs in the market: “It’s at the intersection of how you can truly create a competitive advantage by leveraging your unique understanding of the world around you. It’s not just in the pillar of innovation, it permeates through the whole organization to see opportunities more broadly and everyone participates in it.” Organizations that silo innovation or layer it on top of the rest of the organization typically fail at it, she said. The path to developing a strong level of innovation is a continuous mindset. It’s not a one-point-in-time approach.