Since it was founded in 1969, Natura has believed that relationships set its business model apart. Also recognized for its business practices and initiatives, the company devotes the same effort and care to its relationships with partners as it does to its production.
To provide customers with products that feature state of the art technology, our company makes significant investments in research and development, and relies on approximately 200 partners who are actively engaged in innovation projects. “These partnerships are extremely important for Natura”, explains Daniela Diogenes, Manager of Open Innovation.
According to Daniela, the decision to work with external partners in an open and collaborative way arose out of a need to innovate constantly, by developing new technologies, better products and new business for Natura. Despite having a strong research and development structure in Cajamar (SP), sixty percent of projects are carried out with external partners, whose competences complement those of internal researchers, leveraging scientific and technological progress and meeting the needs of the cosmetics market.
Partnership management
To ensure good interaction with the external development and innovation network, our company made internal changes through two different initiatives. The first - the Time para a Orientação de Parcerias, TOP (Team for Partnership Guidance) - brings together employees from different departments of Natura to offer technical support for partners. As the main tool to support innovation partnerships, TOP was created to facilitate internal discussions, promoting multidisciplinary interaction in order to foresee the challenges of partnership, and create more effective strategies to overcome those challenges. This structure enables the best solutions to be chosen, while minimizing the risks, both for Natura and for the partners.
“We arranged things internally to help our researchers establish partnerships, providing debates on potential models to be adopted, strategies for using the results, and other tools needed to formalize the interactions. At the same time, we incorporate the partner’s view into the company. We use all the information at our disposal to suggest solutions that will benefit both parties – our partners and Natura”, Daniela emphasizes.
The company also developed a tool called i QLICAR, to manage the network of innovation partners. This tool is part of a more comprehensive and corporate program called QLICAR, which involves evaluation of the following indicators: quality, logistics, innovation, competitiveness, environmental and social aspects, and relationships. i QLICAR arose out of a need to focus on our innovation partners. “We understand that we need to know our network of partners better, and we have a program especially for that”, says Daniela.
Through this program, it is possible to know the actions in which each partner works along with Natura when it comes to innovation, as well as their history of collaboration over the years. This system helps build up a history of our connections with partners, and might help identify old partners for new demands.
The main goals of the program are: (I) To give more visibility to the network of partners in Natura’s Innovation Process; (II) To manage the performance and contribution of the network to this process; (III) To recognize the contribution of this network through the results achieved in innovation; and (V) To strengthen the relationship by exchanging knowledge.
Reconhecimento
Em 2014, 135 parceiros foram avaliados no iQLICAR, levando em conta o seu desempenho geral e a relevância das suas contribuições para a inovação da Natura. Veja, a seguir, quais foram as três empresas reconhecidas:
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Parceiro de Tecnologia : UEBT (Union for EthicalBiotrade)
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Reconhecida por sua atuação no Sistema de Verificação e Monitoramento de Fornecedores de Produtos da Biodiversidade. Saiba mais em: http://bit.ly/1InzKEn |
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Parceiro de Produto: COSMOTEC
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Reconhecida por suas contribuições em lançamentos de novos produtos nas categorias de cabelos e rosto.
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Performance Cosmética: KOSMOSCIENCE
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Reconhecida por sua atuação de destaque nos quesitos qualidade e relacionamento, na comprovação da performance cosmética de nossos produtos.
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