Background
Lucio's background is in innovation and R&D, the part of a consumer-goods business that turns ideas into products on the shelf. He learned the work as a manager inside large manufacturers. In those companies, a new product has to clear regulatory checks and supply planning before it launches. That experience shapes how he looks at a PLM programme. He asks whether the system helps an innovation team get better products to market, and he sees the software as only one part of the answer.
Career
Lucio Pieroni spent 20 years in senior industry roles at Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Mars and then spent 15 years advising large accounts on transformation. His industry roles taught him how a global manufacturer makes innovation decisions, while his advisory work gave him an outside view of those decisions at companies that were each trying to change how they bring products to market.
Industry roles at P&G
At P&G, Lucio held senior industry roles in innovation and R&D. His exact job titles from that period aren't published. At a manufacturer of that size, innovation work covers the product development process between early concept and launch, and teams in different countries rely on the same product data. In that setting, you quickly see the gap between a process on paper and the systems people use every day.
Industry roles at Mars
At Mars, Lucio held senior industry roles, one of which was Global Senior Vice President (SVP), Pet Food. A global category role like this puts one leader in charge of a portfolio sold across markets, each with its own tastes and rules. Pet food also has its own feed and labelling regulations. So when Lucio writes about innovation portfolios, he does so as a former category executive.
What he advises on today
Today Lucio advises consumer-goods manufacturers on innovation transformation and PLM strategy. Change management is part of both.
Innovation transformation
This work links a company's innovation and technology strategy to its business strategy. It includes idea management and technology roadmaps. He also works on front-end-of-innovation strategy and portfolio planning, which are the stages where a company decides which ideas get funding.
PLM strategy for manufacturers
He helps consumer-goods manufacturers set a PLM strategy and build the roadmap that follows from it. The roadmap sets out what comes first and what waits until the data and teams are ready. When that order is wrong, teams can end up waiting on data that nobody has cleaned.
Organisational change management
He also leads organisational change management on PLM programmes, which means helping product developers take up the new system. A platform can go live on time and still sit unused if teams keep their old spreadsheets. Change management plans the training and the new roles before go-live, so the company doesn't leave adoption to chance.
Areas of expertise
Lucio's expertise covers four areas, all built on years of industry leadership:
- Organisational change management, focused on how teams adopt new processes
- End-to-end innovation processes, from first idea to launch
- Executive presence when a programme needs board-level support
- Innovation and R&D leadership in global consumer-goods manufacturers
The last area supports the other three. He has led innovation functions himself. That's why his writing on change management reflects a line manager's perspective.
Advisory
Lucio's years of client advisory work before C+P existed included four years as Senior Consulting Manager in the Consumer Practice at Kalypso. He later co-founded C+P Consulting with Marco Caprino. They started the firm because they had watched PLM and innovation programmes fail in the gap between the people who design the business process and the people who build the system. Lucio covers the business and innovation side of that partnership. The firm now has 14 or more specialists across three global offices.