Innovation and investment build on success for Pai Skincare | HSBC UK

Kick-starting innovation

Anticipating demand, the team set to work to formulate a hand sanitiser in early March. A process of new product development that would normally take 18 months, was completed in just two weeks, with the company creating a buy one, donate one scheme with recipients ranging from shelters to food banks.

As demand for hand sanitiser grew, the company prioritised deliveries to care homes, schools and local businesses. “We named the product ‘Acton Spirit’, because it exemplified the spirit we saw in our own team and the local community all pulling together,” says Sarah. “Over the seven months since launch, we’ve donated around 20,000 units.”

As well as creating a sense of wellbeing, the process gave Pai Skincare the impetus to turn ideas into action. “Our ability to launch the new product so quickly acted as a jumping off point for Pai Labs, our new innovation centre,” says Ed Saper, Director of Strategy at Pai Skincare. “It had a galvanising impact on the business and showed us that where previously we’d put things off, we really should be innovating more, switching to a real bias for action.”

Investing in technology

The innovation hub has already been a huge success and combined with Pai’s ability to manufacture small batches of products, is enabling the company to test and learn as well as listen and respond to customer demand. The pandemic also led to a further change that has brought with it long-term potential.

“We’ve really seen the pandemic as a watershed. We closed our offices in early March, and we knew that we would be returning to a very different world,” says Ed. “Taking our cue from the Spanish flu and its subsequent waves, we took steps to prepare. Those included reimagining our production facilities in the light of social distancing and the impact that would have as sales grew.”

The company invested in robotic ‘cobots’, which not only enable social distancing, but improve efficiency across the production line. This ability to plan and prepare has been crucial to Pai emerging from the pandemic with sales up around 25% year on year. “The uncertainty, especially at the start of the pandemic and lockdown was a huge challenge,” says Sarah. “Seventy percent of our sales were through bricks and mortar shops and we had no idea whether those sales would drop off a cliff, whether stores would honour historic bills and how that would affect our cash flow.”