Matthew was due to keynote in Vienna for Henkel, but family circumstances meant he could not attend in person. With the support of Harald and Jürgen from Pioneers and Henkel's executives, he delivered his presentation, "The Future of FMCG", by video to an audience of just under two hundred people.
Henkel is a DAX 30 company with $23 Billion in annual revenues and over 52,000 employees, behind brands such as Loctite, Persil and Schwarzkopf. Founded in 1876, it competes in Adhesive Technologies, Beauty Care, and Laundry and Home Care, and is one of the few western companies Matthew had come across with a planning horizon of 2050. The session focused on the two areas of most interest to it: the future of FMCG and the future of innovation.
"The future we're building today is one unlike anything we've ever seen before, one where Amazon becomes the world's first autonomous end-to-end retailer."Matthew Griffin, Vienna, January 2018
He described the rise of Creative Machines, AIs that can innovate and iterate products as diverse as aircraft parts, chairs, clothes and shoes, and that will soon innovate new chemicals, gene therapies and materials millions of times faster and more cost effectively than today's best product teams. He also covered dramatic gains in advanced manufacturing, augmented reality and robo-automation.
He then pictured Amazon, and likely Alibaba as a fast follower, becoming the world's first autonomous end-to-end retailer: designing products with AI, letting customers try clothes on through augmented reality, then manufacturing on demand and shipping autonomously, all within hours, not days. Under Armour was already designing trainers with AI and making them on demand in the backs of stores, eliminating inventory.
He closed by showing how the same creative machines will work alongside Henkel's product teams to create next generation adhesive, beauty and home care products, and new chemicals and materials that open new markets such as healthcare.
