A Century-Old Company’s Secret Weapons to Innovation
Is it possible for a century-old corporation and a two-year-old startup to have anything in common?
While Fortune 200 company Whirlpool Corporation celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2011 and has offices all over the world, two-year-old startup ProMazo, Inc. operates completely virtually.
But the two companies found common ground: a dedication to innovation. It all started with Noel Dolan, Whirlpool Corporation open innovation and new business development senior manager, and the first advocate for a Whirlpool-ProMazo project. ProMazo worked as a management consulting firm with a twist: they assembled a team of students at the University of Notre Dame to do the market research project for Whirlpool.
“I appreciated [ProMazo’s] forward thinking, with the millennials coming at things differently,” Dolan said. “We didn’t have a well-oiled machine for how to tackle this [project] per se…To have completely fresh eyes looking at it for me was a tremendous value.”
You could call ProMazo a management consulting firm or recruiting company, but that would be too simple.
ProMazo is disruptive and dynamic: The 2-year-old company is changing the future of work by connecting college students to work during the school year and making young talent more accessible for businesses. Whirlpool Corporation is just one company that recognizes the power of incorporating smart, young millennials into their teams. ProMazo has sourced projects for more than 350 students at eight universities, many at other Fortune-500 companies.
“ProMazo students take passion in the assignment they’re given. When the students come here they’re very professional. They seem humble, but hungry at the same time.” — Noel Dolan
But what does a century-old company that’s known for its home appliances want with a startup?
Dolan is a lead innovator for Whirlpool Corporation’s best kept secret: WLabs. The innovation incubator runs from the garage, a space that sits on the corporation’s global headquarters, yet operates autonomously in a separate building. The dynamic workspace is more “San Francisco tech startup” than “Benton Harbor, MI.” Its open-office design features a slide and foosball table, as well as large, collaborative work stations.
But it is not all about looks. Dolan described the work style of WLabs as mirroring a fast-paced startup. Employees in the garage are unafraid to take risks.
“We’re obviously still part of Whirlpool Corporation…but we’re also supported and encouraged to operate a bit differently, especially when it comes to speed,” Dolan said. The team is constantly asking: “Is this innovation something that consumers want? Is it something we can make?”
Dolan is something of a Whirlpool Corporation champion. Having worked in several departments during her nine-year career at Whirlpool, Dolan has a broad scope of the company. She signed on for a market research project with ProMazo students from the University of Notre Dame because she saw the value of integrating millennial perspectives into WLabs.
“Noel Dolan is just a really innovative, forward-thinking person, we see this time and time again with Whirlpool’s employees. There are clients who just get it,” ProMazo Project Director Evan Doney said. “She was one of those clients who understands that young talent can provide important elements and perspectives to companies.”
During this first project ProMazo wanted to add as many millennial perspectives as possible. The team “brought together a cocktail of ages, degrees and majors that just worked,” Project Member Helen Sheng said. This unconventional dynamic became crucial during execution when the group developed an algorithm to identify high-value investment opportunities for Whirlpool. They started out with hundreds of viable opportunities, and their algorithm forced success metrics through a combination of both quantitative and qualitative data that was conducted for 16 specific, individual markets.
This project was complicated, but ProMazo is founded on the belief that motivated college students have the ability to do complex work — and do it very well.
“Our generation in 5 to 10 years will be buying those washing machines and all the other products Whirlpool sells,” Doney said. “So to have young talent and young minds on the products that they will have to sell them to in the future is really important to Whirlpool.”
Based on the algorithm they designed, the ProMazo team came up with three product recommendations. The Whirlpool Innovation Team was pleasantly surprised at the final presentation.
“They chuckled when we recommended the second product,” Doney said. “They chuckled because they had already started with it. That product was the Vessi,” an appliance that ferments, carbonates and dispenses home-brewed beer for the creative home brewer. The success of this project led to four more ProMazo-Whirlpool engagements.
ProMazo Co-Founder Mike Quigley is grateful for the entrepreneurial mindset of Whirlpool Corporation employees, and wants to highlight this forward thinking.
That is why the ProMazo Content Team is teaming up with Whirlpool’s Media & Content Team to tell the exciting stories within Whirlpool Corporation. The ProMazo Share Innovation Series: Featuring Whirlpool will highlight ProMazo students who have worked on Whirlpool projects, the process of new product development in WLabs, the innovative women behind Whirlpool’s success, the progressive office spaces — and that is only the beginning.
“Working with Whirlpool has been really exciting for us because we were able to flex ProMazo’s model and show that we truly are a ‘one-stop-shop’ for companies,” Quigley said. “We’ve had the opportunity to learn so much about the incredible innovation happening within Whirlpool Corporation, and now we want to share these stories with people beyond our team.”
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