Diapers, paper towels, washing power and the like have been tough candidates to adopt into the online sales space. Shipping costs have added costs making online ordering unappealing. But both Amazon and P&G understand collaborative innovation better than most.

Amazon has a strong history of collaboration with DHL and more recently included Audi into that exclusive group. This was a collaboration in 2015 which saw Amazon, DHL and Audi using an app to test the delivery of orders straight to the trunk of your car.

P&G’s intent to collaborate better than any organisation, dates back to 2000 with the entry of CEO AG Lafley who entered the household brands giant to implement a turnaround strategy. He achieved that in spectacular fashion creating cross-functional communities of practice and driving smart collaboration from the helm.  

The newest plan, which actually dates back a few years, at face value appears pretty simple, at face value. Today many of us wait for really cool apps and technology to create competitive disruption, but in this case the disruption was really about location.

Employees of Amazon began packaging, labelling and shipping P&G products direct from the warehouses in which they are produced. Every day P&G loads a selection of productions that have been ordered onto a pallet and hands them over to Amazon, who are inside a small risng-fenced area within P7G’s factory. Amazon employees then package, label and ship the items directly to customers. Amazon is technically setting up a distribution shop inside P&G’s warehouse.  The case study for B2B collaboration is game changing with disruption as a result of a shortened supply chain.

Win wherever people shop, that’s what Alex Tosolini, P&G’s Senior VP of Global eBusiness, told eMarketer. “Our job is not to change consumer behaviour,” Tosoloni also said. “Our job is to follow consumers’ behaviour and be present with our brands.”

But there is definitely a shift. This collaboration has shown that retailers no longer hold the power. That’s b2b collaboration at play!

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Janice Scheckter is a big fan of Amazon and online shopping in general but a bigger fan of smart collaboration and disruption that serves the customer.