P&G appoints country CEO for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei to drive innovation

In a statement, Country Ong, who joins the company after 20 years of experience in sales and marketing in the consumer goods industry, confirmed this focus.

“My key focus will be on driving our efforts to deliver product innovation that creates value in people’s lives in small but meaningful ways​,” he said.

“I am confident that as a team, we will continue to strengthen P&G’s position as a leader in consumer brands worldwide.​”

Innovation​

Innovation has recently been called out as a key way for P&G, which has been undergoing a five year sales slump, to return to the forefront of the FMCG industry.

Indeed, a recent report in Forbes​ suggests the tactic could already be seeing returns.

“Procter & Gamble has been reinvesting a chunk of its savings from productivity improvements into R&D in an attempt to revive innovation in the company​,” the media outlet notes.

“These innovations could have begun to pay off in the second quarter and are likely to pick up steam in the back half of fiscal 2016​.”

Singapore is already a hub of innovation for the multinational, which owns such global personal care brands as Axe, Dove and Pantene.

In the country, P&G has an established Asia base for its research and development, a key part of which is its five-year public sector research collaboration with Singapore’s Agency for Sicence, Technology and Resrach (A*STAR).

‘Supply Chain of the Future’ ​

The most recent example of P&G’s investment into innovation as part of the programme is its partnership with the National University of Singapore to conduct joint research into supply chain technology and development.

Working with the university’s Logistics Institute - Asia Pacific (TLI - Asia Pacific) over the next three years, P&G look to drive forward innovation within the global supply chain.

“This [partnership] enables all parties to benefit by being externally focused on cutting edge research and by being well-connected with the best thinkers in academia and in the industry,”​ said Ed Hunter, P&G’s vice president of product supply, Asia.