How Unilever infuses AI innovation for continuous improvement with Bloomflow
Unilever Group is a multinational consumer goods company that produces a wide range of products, from food and beverages to personal care items and cleaning products. With a history dating back to the 1800s, Unilever is one of the largest companies in the world and operates in over 190 countries.
- Sector
- Consumer Goods
- Team
- Innovation
- Employees
- 127,000
- Headquarters
- London, UK
Unilever × Bloomflow300+
startups identified and progressed through the platform
70
ideas submitted and assigned ownership in the innovation team in first year of deployment
33%
of startups are in active collaboration with the group
125
users in first year of deployment
The Challenge
There was no single, centralized platform to create, manage and extract value from their evolving portfolio of startups and partners.
They had no way to manage the massive inflow of requests to work with them from innovation partners.
There was no tool to create, analyze and find solutions to their problem statements and internal needs.
"Our commitment to continuous improvement and innovation is bolstered by Bloomflow. It provides an integrated approach to managing our diverse innovation portfolio, fostering collaboration between start-ups, academia, incubators, and VCs. With it, we are able to streamline our ideation process, harness data-driven insights, and promote open communication, ultimately contributing to a more effective and informed innovation strategy."
Sam Dover
Global AI Strategy Lead at Unilever
The Solution
Unilever chose Bloomflow for their aligned values and to use as a one-stop-shop platform for innovation. Notably: gathering ideas from across the group, providing a common entry point to outside partners, managing a dynamic partner database, the ability to match up ideas with a portfolio of solutions, and tracking their innovation funnel.
They implemented a detailed tagging structure to align innovation partners and programs to their global technology architecture, meaning internal communication is much easier.
After the first year of deployment, the platform is being adopted by other innovation teams throughout the business, driving high visibility and macro-trend analysis.
The Results
More than 300 startups have been identified and progressed through the platform, giving Unilever's innovation team a structured view of their entire external ecosystem.
70 ideas were submitted and assigned ownership within the innovation team in the first year of deployment, with 33% of startups now in active collaboration with the group.
125 users were onboarded in the first year alone, fueling cross-team visibility and macro-trend analysis as adoption continues to expand across the business.
