Barilla Pasta

Elevator Pitch: This case highlighted what it meant to be innovative and innovative with the customer in mind. Barilla looked at getting better only by ensuring that the customer was getting what was good for him, what he wanted and beyond. The innovation at Barilla was real, incremental and successful because it was engraved in its culture. They were creative and took steps with an educated sense of direction. They overtook other companies not with a view of the next quarter but the next 20 years, in vision. Barilla believed that if they were to keep their stakeholders happy, there was a need of tireless efforts from their side. They were not just selling their pasta , they were making a company out of their dreams.

1)MIW was surprised to get “explorative” ideas (p. 431). Do the examples of incremental and radical innovation ideas actually qualify as two distinct types?  YES or NO (state your position first). Use examples when you defend your answer.

Ans: YES. These two types of innovation are distinct, yet similar in some ways. A radical innovation requires a rapid and significant impact on the markets, which occurred in the Barilla case. However, it takes time to understand the exact nature of the innovation and its impact. To judge whether it is in fact an incremental / radical innovation requires a lot of study of the constraints, the markets, the exact nature of the change occurring. These were “explorative”, that is , they were yet to be experimented with. So they can be broadly defined as an incremental innovation, as over time, it has gotten better and impacted the product more than the entire “pasta-making-industry”.

2)What is the R&D ratio of Barilla? Is this typical for a food company? What are the implications of Barilla’s R&D Ratio?

Ans: The R&D at Barilla is way higher than its competitors. Its closest competitors include Krafts here in the USA , and though Kraft is scaling up its spending it is yet to surpass Barilla. The implications with regards to Barilla being that since it has always aimed to get better and really invest on innovation for a better “pasta” for generations. This has highly impact date way we perceive “Barilla”.