Background & Business Need

A global leader in specialty ingredients for personal care and beauty aimed to modernize its R&D operations by enhancing its digital labs. While the organization had invested in several advanced platforms for ingredient discovery, claim substantiation, and formulation simulation, its ways of working remained traditionally structured.

The challenges included:

Siloed collaboration between scientific and digital teams

Long experimentation cycles

Inconsistent feedback loops from digital tools to lab processes

To respond faster to customer demands and stay competitive in the beauty and personal care market, the company needed to integrate Agile ways of working into its digital innovation processes.

Goals
Reduce cycle time from idea to validated formulation

Foster cross-functional collaboration across R&D and digital teams

Enable iterative improvements in screening, testing, and digital validation

Scale Agile practices across global innovation centers

How Sain Innovation Helped
Sain Innovation partnered with the client to implement a tailored Agile transformation framework specifically designed for digital and scientific environments.

1. Agile Discovery & Roadmap Development
Our team conducted a series of diagnostic workshops to understand existing lab processes and digital workflows. Key findings revealed:

Fragmented communication across departments

Rigid testing pipelines

Delayed integration of insights from digital experiments

Sain Innovation developed a clear transformation roadmap with a phased Agile rollout model tailored to lab-based R&D.

2. Agile Training & Mindset Coaching
Agile enablement sessions were delivered across three tiers:

Functional Teams (scientists, digital analysts, claim experts) learned Agile fundamentals and rituals customized for their roles

Tech Teams adopted Scrum/Kanban to deliver digital features in sprints

Leaders were equipped with coaching and tools to sponsor agility at scale

3. Cross-Functional Agile Pods
We helped establish Agile Pods composed of:

Scientists, formulation experts, digital product developers, and data analysts

Each pod owned a segment of the R&D value stream (e.g., from screening to validation)

The pods worked in 2-week sprints with integrated planning, reviews, and retrospectives.

4. Agile Tools and Metrics
Teams adopted visual tools like digital Kanban boards and storyboards. Key metrics tracked included:

Cycle time (idea to result)

Time-to-feedback

Percentage of validated formulations per sprint

Retrospectives enabled the teams to adapt rapidly and remove blockers continuously.

5. Pilot to Scale
Two Agile Pods were launched in pilot innovation labs. Their success—marked by:

30% reduction in iteration cycles

Improved collaboration

Shorter decision loops
—led to the scaling of Agile practices across multiple innovation hubs worldwide.

Overcoming Key Challenges in Agile Adoption
Cultural Resistance
Shifting from hierarchical decision-making to empowered teams met initial resistance. We introduced leadership coaching and change workshops to foster a culture of collaboration and agility.

Aligning with Existing Systems
The organization had mature scientific workflows. Agile was layered incrementally to avoid disrupting regulatory and experimental rigor.

Scaling Across Locations
Rolling out Agile globally introduced coordination gaps. We built internal coaching capabilities and lightweight governance models to drive consistency without central control.

Balancing Speed with Scientific Accuracy
Agility needed to match scientific reliability. Review gates and validation points were embedded into sprints to balance pace with precision.

Results & Outcomes
Benefit Impact
Cycle Time Reduction 30% shorter time from experiment to insight
Improved Collaboration Enhanced communication between lab and digital teams
Higher Responsiveness Faster pivots based on customer and experimental data
Scalable Agile Model Rolled out across global innovation hubs
Stronger Innovation Culture Teams took ownership of learning, results, and iteration

Strategic Impact
With Sain Innovation’s guidance, the client evolved from rigid lab-based processes to agile, insight-driven innovation cycles. Digital tools and scientific workflows became tightly integrated, enabling faster, more data-rich experimentation and smarter decision-making in personal care product development.

✅ Key Takeaways
Agile can be successfully adapted for scientific and lab environments

Cross-functional pods accelerate iteration and reduce silos

Agile success depends on balancing experimentation speed with scientific validation

Leadership support and mindset change are critical for scale

Want to explore how your labs or R&D functions can adopt Agile ways of working?
Let’s build a future-ready, innovation-led organization together.

👉 Contact Sain Innovation