Building Business Acumen in R&D and Science teams
ROUSSELOT
New commercial perspectives for Rousselot’s science-based teams
Rousselot is the global leader in collagen-based solutions for the food, health and nutrition, (bio)medical, and pharmaceutical sectors. Rousselot was founded in 1981, and in 2014 became a part of Darling Ingredients, the world’s largest producer of sustainable ingredients from edible and inedible organic residuals. Rousselot’s Science and Innovation director came to us with the request to bring a new commercial perspective to their R&D and Science teams’ way of working.
The Business Acumen Training Program
Together with Rousselot, we designed a training program for the R&D and Science teams to become more customer-centric and build further on their business acumen. The team consisted of chemical engineers and scientists who normally spend most of their time in the lab.
The Business Acumen training program was made up of a kick-off, 7 workshops, and a final presentation & learnings day, spread over 6 months. Topics of the training included: building value propositions, market quantification & qualification, strategic fit, business models, and assumption testing.
Combining Theory & Practice
We started with 13 ideas and throughout the learning process, we filtered them stepwise to end up with 3 ideas that were developed into business cases using our comprehensive set of tools and templates. This not only made the learnings very concrete and applicable but also led to many constructive discussions on the ideas. This gave the team the confidence that they were also able to be involved in “commercial” actions and discussions.
Research Support
We also provided research support to strengthen the business cases and to enrich the discussions held during the workshops. We joined the teams as external team members to support them in their market research efforts and to improve their final presentations. We worked closely with the teams, through fast feedback loops, to gather detailed information on their business cases.
Why MTI²?
What was greatly valued by both the participants and Rousselot’s Science and Innovation director was (1) our rigorous approach as we delved deeply into their needs to offer a customized offering, and (2) our tools and templates which were very easy to digest and raised the right discussions and issues.
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