Supporting Growth through Innovation Networks in Unilever

At Unilever, the focus on knowledge and innovations has a solid back-ground, since knowledge management has been actively practiced in the company for the last 10 years and measurable results have been achieved. Currently, Unilever's five-year strategic plan announced in 2000 is "a se-ries of linked initiatives designed to align entire organization behind ambi-tious plans for accelerating growth and expanding markets". This is to be achieved by "focusing on Unilever's leading brands and supporting them with strong innovation" ("Path to Growth", 2000).

Considering the company's rich experience in the area of innovation, the innovation network fits ideally into the current initiatives. It links local communities of practice, focused on the tacit knowledge dimension, with the innovation process management (IPM) program aimed at the coordina-tion of the innovation initiatives across the company and dominantly fo-cused on providing information and explicit sources of knowledge.
The tasks of the innovation network are to increase the transparency of existing innovation initiatives and increase the credibility of the company's innovation strategy through the direct involvement of employees in the process of selection and prioritization of projects.