After just six months at Tiger Brands, Steve Miller has returned to his old stomping ground - SABMiller . This time, though, he is group director of innovation, based in London. Last time he was innovation manager for SA.
"I couldn't pass up this opportunity," he says. "I'm challenged by the idea of testing myself on the world stage. I like the people and the culture of SAB. And I love the idea of lots of travel."
He won't be rushing to London just yet. "I'd prefer to get to know my new boss at a distance first," he jokes.
Actually it's the thought of two winters in a row and the practicalities of getting his family settled and children, aged seven and 12, into schools that are part of the reason for the delay.
At SABMiller the innovation function is intertwined in the marketing and strategy of the group and falls under marketing. Marketing is one of Miller's strengths. Recently an FM article observed that he had a reputation for challenging convention and forcing ad agencies to radically rethink their approach. He is also good at sniffing out new things and is blessed (or cursed, depending on your view) with buckets of curiosity.
"SAB understands that organic growth from existing brands and products has limits. My job is to look for new products, new concepts and new approaches to market and to keep brands relevant to consumers."
He says brand maintenance is not his best point. He prefers acting as an ideas engineer: finding, developing and executing new ideas, even in seemingly mundane areas. "There are many exciting opportunities in packaging, particularly because of technology advances. Imagine if refrigeration were made redundant by cans that cooled themselves?"
Packaging also influences perception. In SA, brown bottles hold mainstream beers while green hold premium beer, or so it seems. "SAB, through Amstel, engineered this perception. In other parts of the world Amstel is sold in brown bottles."
Virtually every company within SABMiller has its own innovation department. "Their investment horizons for innovation are around short- to medium-term returns - which is correct. Then at the group level we can take a longer-term view on innovation. We can explore ideas that may be on the bleeding edge. We can explore concepts, do some research and prototyping. If an idea has a commercial application, we will find a home for it in one of our companies."
SABMiller has a formal innovation process called The Innovation Way. It involves generating, screening, optimising and commercialising ideas and was taken from SAB SA, fine-tuned and introduced across the group. (The company also has The Marketing Way and The Research Way.)
Processes are not everything, cautions Miller. "We can have the best processes in the world, but you have to know how to maximise their benefit. Processes can stunt entrepreneurial thought and behaviour. We must fanatically teach and inculcate the process. But then we must allow the really good people to break all the rules."
Sometimes this results in failure, but if it does, so be it. "The reintroduction of Lion to the market was not successful. But we used the lessons from that experience to launch Miller Genuine Draft in SA. In one year Miller has been more successful than Heineken was in 10. "
The company also benchmarks itself extensively and not just against its peers but also against the likes of Apple and IBM. Why? "Because if you only benchmark against brewers, you will end up reinventing the world as you know it." And Miller has no intention of doing that.
