2023 Business Impact of the Year – Global: Human8 & Philips

Philips partnered with Human8 to develop a new practice called ‘Continuous Learning’, placing an emphasis on human insight within proposition development.

Over the last three years, the practice, informed by seven online insight communities, has been used to help the business to develop solutions that aim to meet the needs of underserved communities, while transitioning to a more circular economy.

To address healthcare accessibility inequities, Philips aims to improve the lives of two billion people a year by 2025, including 300 million in underserved communities, rising to 2.5 billion and 400 million respectively by 2030.

To achieve this, the company has spent 10 years changing its portfolio, but a challenge remained for the insights and innovation functions to become more people centric.

The Continuous Learning practice uses various ‘learning loops’ with set objectives, inspired by design thinking. The centre of the programme is a research community operating in seven markets, allowing global teams to carry out ongoing observations and discussions.

Since the launch in 2020, 17 Continuous Learning journeys have been started and the approach has replaced previous practices and developed incremental learning opportunities within the same budget. Additionally, Philips has been named as a Clarivate Top 100 Global Innovator and collected 171 design awards in 2022.

The outcomes of the Continuous Learning practice have included:

1. 50% of Continuous Learning initiatives focused on bolstering the voices of underserved communities, women, and children
2. Based on an understanding of people’s lives, Philips formed partnerships with stakeholders in the health ecosystem, including insurance companies and healthcare professionals
3. Continuous Learning projects receive NPS scores of over 70 from Philips stakeholders
4. Communities with local moderators in native languages allow learning loops to operate at twice the speed of traditional techniques. This is boosted by meta-learnings that agency teams gather across workstreams.

Christophe Vergult, partner at Human8, said: “With the new ‘Continuous Learning’ practice at Philips, we are placing human understanding at the core of proposition development. To avoid designing for passing internal hard gates in the innovation process, Philips is now designing for the people. It is a bold vision Human8 shares with Philips. It is great to get recognition for such a transformational research programme.”

Pictured: Christophe Vergult at Human8 and Marieke Boers of Philips collect the award on stage at the MRS Awards 2023.