HBR On Strategy

How Indra Nooyi Brought Design Thinking to PepsiCo

Oct 18, 2023

Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo, discusses how she introduced design thinking to the company's innovation process. They explore topics such as user-centered design, creating fundamentally different consumer-machine interactions, launching new products, finding hero products, the relationship between design thinking and innovation, and strategies for determining innovation and tight management in PepsiCo.

14:58

Episode guests

Indra Nooyi

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Design thinking at PepsiCo goes beyond packaging and focuses on fundamentally different interactions with consumers, as seen in products like Pepsi Spire and the delicate, tray-based products for women.

PepsiCo underwent a culture change, shifting from a decentralized company to a more coordinated and centralized approach, enabling better management and value extraction.

Deep dives

Incorporating Design Thinking into Pepsi's Innovation Process

PepsiCo CEO, Indra Nui, discusses how she brought design thinking into the company to improve the user experience and differentiate PepsiCo's offerings. She noticed that the shelf was becoming more cluttered, making it harder for consumers to differentiate products. This led her to rethink the innovation process and design experiences for consumers from conception to shelf. Nui introduced a Chief Design Officer and encouraged her direct reports to capture good design examples. Design thinking at PepsiCo goes beyond packaging and focuses on fundamentally different interactions with consumers, as seen in products like Pepsi Spire and the delicate, tray-based products for women.

Introduction

2min

Rethinking Innovation and Design Thinking at PepsiCo

7min

Launching New Products and Finding Hero Products

2min

The Relationship Between Design Thinking and Innovation

2min

Strategies for Determining Innovation and Tight Management in PepsiCo

2min

As the former CEO of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi played an important role in shaping the company’s global strategy. She shifted PepsiCo’s focus to healthier products, worked to improve sustainability, and perhaps most notably: introduced design thinking into the company’s innovation process.

“It’s a fine line between innovation and design. Hopefully design leads to innovation, and innovation demands design,” Nooyi tells Harvard Business Review editor-in-chief Adi Ignatius.

In this episode, you’ll learn how Nooyi thinks about the relationship between innovation and design — and why she says that “design” is about more than just creating eye-catching packaging. You’ll also learn how design thinking shifted the culture at PepsiCo to ultimately make the company’s operations more centralized and coordinated.

Key episode topics include: strategy, change management, design thinking, food and Beverage sector, sustainability, innovation, culture shift, global strategy, user experience, design, packaging.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

· Listen to the full HBR IdeaCast episode: PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi on Design Thinking (2016)

· Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast

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