P&G had long relied on their internal product development staff of over 7,000 people. P&G's CEO A.G. Lafley realized that 7,000 would not be enough to keep up with the rapid pace of customer demand. Rather than hire more internal staff, P&G turned to crowdsourcing in two major ways:

• Connect & Develop is their internal program to obtain 50% of their new product and service ideas from the outside by 2010. The old term "not invented here" had been replace by "proudly found elsewhere". Pringles Prints is an example of a Connect & Develop product. 

• P&G also has an association with Innocentive, a company that employs over 90,000 scientists who work to solve open challenges posted by companies seeking solutions. Solvers can make as much as $30,000 when their solutions are chosen by seeking companies.  

Procter & Gamble posts product development sub-tasks directly to a public website including the price they will pay for the project to be completed. Members of P&G’s extended development team respond with proposals, and the work is awarded to the best solution. According to Larry Houston P&G’s VP of innovation and knowledge, P&G now counts 1.5 million people in its extended network.

Example: Pringles Prints

• “Connect & Develop” is P&G’s crowdsourcing development arm.
• The Pringles unit wanted a way to print directly on to chips.
• Connect & Develop was engaged to write a spec for the technology and release to its network.
• A small bakery in Italy already had the technology which P&G licensed.
• Product was launched in less than a year with less invested than developing in-house
• 137 products have been brought to market through Connect & Develop including: Olay Regenerist, Swiffer Dusters, and Crest Spinner Brush.