Research & Tools | Innovator Interviews | Whirlpool

Innovator Interview: Whirlpool

Learn what Randy Voss, the Senior Manager of Global Strategy and Business Development at Whirlpool, has to share when it comes to balancing innovation in a large organization.

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The background

This Innovator Interview series highlights leading innovators at Fortune 500 companies. In contrast to past interviews, focusing on a single innovation, this series examines the state of innovation at global organizations. We spoke with both innovation leaders and practitioners, within varying business units and organizational structures, across a broad range of industries both for–profit and not–for–profit.

The interviews offer a unique insider’s view into the world of innovation—what makes it work, what holds organizations back, and what critical advice new innovators need to know to be more successful with innovation overall.

The interview

What makes innovation a mainstay at Whirlpool? Randy Voss, Senior Manager of Global Strategy and Business Development, shared his ideas on balancing incremental and breakthrough innovation, the evolution of innovation metrics over time, and how their former site – UnleashingInnovation.com – helped themselves and the innovation community share best practices.

 

Client Quotes

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    Senior Vice President of Innovation, Wells Fargo Wells Fargo
  • “Any innovative company must develop processes for understanding and responding to consumer needs in a very focused way. Otherwise, they're just inventors, they're not necessarily innovators.”
    Tony Tomazic, Director of Consumer Innovations, Humana Humana
  • “If you don't make innovation a strategic part of your business plan and you don't drive that into the culture, I don't think you'll have a strong innovation pipeline.”
    Mark Hausfeld, Innovation Manager, Global Business Services, Procter & Gamble Procter & Gamble
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    Steven Rubinow, Chief Information Officer, NYSE Euronext NYSE Euronext Logo
  • “Working with futurethink was a very rewarding experience for our team. They brought a great combination of provocative outside ideas, market perspective and a program design that challenged us to think of our own business in more innovative ways.”
    Jim Daly, Vice President of Human Resources, Standard & Poor's Standard & Poor's
  • “futurethink's research and 'how-to' tools have been essential to building our innovation program.”
    Cindy Morgan, Innovation Manager, New England Federal Credit Union New England Federal Credit Union
  • “futurethink is enabling us to build critical innovation skills and share best practices across our global organization.”
    Jeff Honious, Vice President of Innovation, Reed Elsevier Reed Elsevier
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    Sandy Stosz, Rear Admiral, United States Coast Guard United States Coast Guard
  • “The futurethink team did an outstanding job in designing and facilitating an innovation event for our senior leaders, many of who regarded this as the best innovation workshop that they had ever been a part of. I would recommend futurethink to any organization that is looking for clear and actionable pathways to Innovation.”
    Wayne Pethrick, Director, Marketing and Consumer Insights, Pitney Bowes Pitney Bowes
  • “futurethink is always thinking ahead about learning and 'innovate' it before we ask! Their programs have been a huge success with our teams.”
    Director of Learning & Development, Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Sonovian Pharmaceuticals
  • “futurethink is the innovation expert. They fine-tune their training to our clients' needs. I'm constantly looking for new opportunities to engage them in our work.”
    Brian Weberg, Director, National Conference of State Legislatures
  • “futurethink made my leadership team think in new ways and helped us develop winning business ideas right in the room. My team now embraces innovation rather than fearing it.”
    Mary Fennoglio, Managing Director, Citigroup Corporate Investment Bank Citigroup
  • “If you don't innovate, be creative and look to the future and the possibilities of what will evolve over time, you will cease to be relevant.”
    Randy Voss, Senior Manager, Global Strategy & Business Development, Whirlpool Whirlpool
  • “futurethink's sessions included excellent examples and energizing exercises that brought innovation to life. They got us to look at our business with new eyes.”
    Joan P. Lawrence-Ross, Chief Learning Officer, AXA
  • “We need to look beyond our organization's walls to innovate.”
    Mehmoon Khan, Global Leader, Innovation Process Development, Unilever Unilever
  • “The futurethink workshop not only provided an incredible jolt of energy to our collective innovation efforts and established the common understanding of innovation concepts, but it was also a wonderful team-building event. I don’t think it could have been organized and conducted any better.”
    Michael Ripa, Manager, FRI Infomatics