Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest consumer goods company, is an acknowledged global industry leader in new consumer product innovation. According to data from IRI, the market research firm, it produced five of the top 10 US non-food product launches in 2009. But as it pursues its drive to add another 1bn customers to the estimated 2.5bn it already reaches, Bob McDonald, its chief executive, says that the road to more innovation should increasingly embrace other people’s good ideas.

“We need bigger innovations that create more value,” Mr McDonald told this year’s annual gathering and awards event for companies and research institutions that work with P&G. “We want you to come to us with your big ideas first.”

It is now commonplace for consumer goods companies to work with outside partners and to pursue “open innovation” (see panel). But P&G may be the one that has made the largest deliberate effort to expand its reach since the launch of its Connect & Develop programme in 2001 by A.G. Lafley, its then chief executive.