Brewing Fresh Innovations

Though she has been at Nespresso for a short while, Isabel Masagão has already made a major impact for the greater good. She has spent over 14 years in the consumer packaged goods industry with an impressive track record. Isabel is now the Head of Marketing at Nespresso Brazil, and is showing no signs of slowing down.

5 questions with Isabel:

1. What makes an innovative culture? How do you create a culture of innovation?

Since 1986, Nespresso has worked with the innovative trilogy concept: high quality portioned coffee for in-home consumption. Nespresso was the first brand in the market who understood there was a need for that, the need for a consistently perfect coffee. We take the whole chain very seriously. Our aim is to provide high quality coffee in innovative capsules and high technology machines with outstanding designs. Also, a menu of services that surprises and delights our consumers. Also, an ambitious sustainability platform, The Positive Cup, which intends to invest heavily in creating Shared Value. That means that being able to think outside the box makes a world of difference when creating a culture of innovation. Nowadays, looking at analog categories and knowing who your consumers are and what they seek is a must. In the past, companies may have looked for similar products as benchmarks. Today, innovative companies, such as Nespresso, look at consumer behaviors and attitudes. It's extremely important to know your consumers, understand their real needs and what could serve that specific need. That brings innovation on board.

2. Do you have any rituals for re-setting your team to be creative? How does your team generate new ideas?

We make sure we have an open atmosphere for innovation where anybody can bring ideas at any time. An example of that is our internal global platform called DELIGHT where employees, who are constantly in touch with the final customers, can officially send their ideas aimed at leveraging consumers' satisfaction. These ideas are analyzed internally so they are effectively implemented. They can be simple ideas but manage to improve internal processes and create a sense of belonging in our employees, which makes a huge difference. Our team is also encouraged to look at other markets and business categories as examples. We observe what digital campaigns are performing well, what videos are being shared online, what products other categories are launching, and especially what we can learn from it all. Analog categories or situations are great for learning and it’s important to observe and interact. There are insights everywhere.

3. What’s the biggest challenge you face when innovating?

It is important to innovate and taking risks is a part of the process, but even risks must be predicted somehow. It’s dangerous to risk if you don't any have strong fundamentals, knowledge, or consumers evaluation. We take our means of dealing with consumers, who are innovative themselves. We are close to our clients and provide them with exclusive personalized services such as the ones in our Boutiques and through Customer Relationship Center (our Distant Channels) where we are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With that, we manage to access information about our customers that are highly valued internally. This true treasure helps us face better the risks of innovating.

4. How do you find inspiration or ideas from adjacent industries? Or do you focus only on your category?

We invest in a gastronomy platform called Nespresso Atelier which intends to delight our Club Members and deliver a unique opportunity to cook alongside renowned chefs who develop recipes inspired by Nespresso Grands Crus. We share our Coffee Expertise focusing not only in coffee itself, but also in gastronomy, for instance. If you just look for your direct competitors, your vision and learning will be limited and you may not provide your clients with the best experience they can have. Suppose you needed to develop a nice gift box. Instead of searching in the market for other gift boxes as examples, you could have a look at how florists make their lace arrangements or at how a wedding planner cares about the details in order to broaden your horizons. Creativity is essential and inspiration will not necessarily always come from your same category.

5. Looking to the future, how is Nespresso going to be a leader in innovation?

We do have more innovations coming this year that were inspired by consumer’s needs of personalization and customization. Since Nespresso channels are exclusive, we are able to understand better what our clients want and come up with ideas to supply these needs.