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A Chinese pork producer produces a 200-episode cartoon TV show featuring its signature hot dogs. A Japanese diaper company designs its products so their infant consumers can easily get changed out of them. Asian companies are reinventing the way they produce even the most mundane of consumer goods, and it shows on 2014's ranking of the Most Innovative Companies In The World. Out of the 100-strong list, Asia contributes a full quarter of the firms.
Firms in Asia are ramping up efforts to compete for the wallets in the increasingly consumer-driven Asian economies. That’s why two
View full coverage of the World's Most Innovative Companies 2014 here.
As always, the tech empires who’ve made headlines for their big-ticket acquisitions also make the list. Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten picked up messaging app Viber for $900 million this year, and China’s Tencent has been on quite the shopping spree, acquiring everything from online shopping sites to logistics firms in order to fend off impending competition from e-commerce empire Alibaba which is preparing for what might be one of the biggest U.S. IPOs ever. Baidu is also making headwinds in innovation- it spent $650 million on research and development last year to transition its search engine to mobile platforms.
Japan contributed 7 firms on the list- the most from any Asian company, coming ahead of the other Asian countries whose firms made it. But Southeast Asia may be the real winner. Unilever’s Indonesian unit and CP All clinched the top spot—yet another reminder that the region’s fast-developing economies are also becoming more dynamic and creative. Further down the list, two other firms in the region made the cut for their bold innovations. Singapore Technologies Engineering is launching its first commercial remote sensing satellite next year and Malaysia’s No. 3 telco DiGi.com created a flat rate for dialing across the nation and launched a free, 'lite' Facebook service, both industry firsts.
Firms on this list were ranked based on their innovation premium, which measures how much the stock market thinks a company will come up with fresh, money-making ideas over and above its existing businesses over the next several years. This benchmark was created by business school professors Jeff Dyer and Hal Gregersen, in conjunction with HOLT/Credit Suisse.
View complete list here. You can sort by region and industry.
#1 Unilever Indonesia
Country: Indonesia
Mom-and-pop shops get discounted products from the Unilever unit if they display their products more prominently than their competitors’. Sells items like shampoo in small sachets to reduce prices and increase appeal to poor customers.
#2 CP All
Country: Thailand
Employees of Thailand’s largest convenience store chain, with over 7000 7-Eleven outlets, participate in an annual company-wide competition to reward the top ten innovations from about 3000 entries.
#3 Hindustan Unilever
Country: India
It’s ramping up innovation in the toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorants, skin care, hair care and liquid detergent segments. Has a retail footprint of about 2 million stores in Indian rural areas and last year launched the ‘perfect village’ initiative to educate people about the benefits of using products like fabric conditioners and face-wash. All management trainees have to spend almost two months living among locals in rural villages to understand their target consumers.
#4 Rakuten
Country: Japan
“Japan’s Amazon” bought messaging app Viber for $900 million in February and, in June, set aside $100 million dedicated to supporting early-stage start-ups in the Asia-Pacific, Israel and the U.S. Also formed a strategic partnership with Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia in the hopes of boosting online retail and increasing use of its travel site. Has more than 50 researchers in 12 countries.
#5 Henan Shuanghui
Country: China
China’s largest meat producer was responsible for the biggest ever Chinese takeover of an American company at $4.7 billion—pork producer Smithfield Foods. Gets ideas by networking with top Western marketing firms, including its $1.6 million TV cartoon series Shuanghui Big Forest featuring its signature products. Developed a quality control system to track the condition of its 15 million pigs. Its parent W.H Group debuted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Aug 5.
#6 Tingyi Holding
Country: China
China’s top instant noodle producer creates localized noodle flavors for different regions in China. Its research center studies traditional food and culinary culture, processing techniques as well as storage methods.
#7 Hengan International
Country: China
The leading Chinese diaper company works with research centers and technical colleges in the country and globally and runs its own management college to improve staff quality. Launched partnership with IBM this year to use big data to improve its supply chain.
#8 Baidu
Country: China
China's No. 1 search engine spent $650 million on research and development to transition the company into providing more mobile-friendly services. Launched Baidu Wallet, a mobile payment system this April. Recently hired Google scientist Andrew Ng to lead the company's artificial drive.
#9 Fanuc Corporation
Country: Japan
This Japanese industrial robotics firm has installed 220,000 robots worldwide. Among the innovations by its more than 600 engineers is developing learning robots, which learn the characteristics of an end-user’s robot path to boost performance.
Staff engineer Mr Peter Swanson speaks to Forbes about these learning robots.
#10 Tencent Holdings
Country: China
This Internet giant isn’t content with owning hugely popular instant messaging apps WeChat and QQ—it’s trying to fend off competition from e-commerce firm Alibaba. This year, it’s snapped up stakes in Craigslist-like 58.com, search engine Sogou and logistics firm China South City Holdings.
