Kimberly-Clark Taps into Australia’s Best Young Talent

13 January 2010

Jill Trewhella from Sydney University & Linda Watts

In the second half of 2009 Kimberly-Clark (KCA) signed partnerships with two of Australia’s leading universities – the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Sydney University. These partnerships represent an innovative approach to going outside the company for new ideas and direction and for research. We’re able to tap into some of Australia’s best up and coming talent while providing students with real life work experience with a leading global company.

A great example of this involved briefing marketing students from four different UTS marketing courses on four current KCA business issues.

These were:

  • Communicating the nappy Life Cycle Analysis story
  • Involving consumers in product and service innovation
  • Social media ideas and opportunities
  • Publicising our great track record of Corporate Social Responsibility

The students worked in teams and the best work was presented back to panels of KCAers at evening presentations at the beginning of November. We selected winners and runners up and they subsequently received prize money from KCA. The anticipated benefits to KCA were new ideas from external people which we could adapt to meet our needs. The benefits to the UTS students can be seen in an email extract below from a student;

Kimberly-Clark signs agreement with UTS.

“It's been an extreme pleasure and a wonderful learning opportunity to be a part of the joint UTS and Kimberly-Clark Marketing Project. I am very fortunate that a corporation such as Kimberly-Clark Australia (KCA) has taken the initiative to engage with postgraduate students like myself. The real-life business case studies assisted our learning experience and provided a greater depth of understanding that was above and beyond the realms of any text book.

Being able to participate in this project has been the highlight of my postgraduate studies to date. The amount of support we received from KCA was amazing and much appreciated. It was great to be heard and feel that our ideas may have value and also be rewarded.”

Linda Watts
General Manager - Strategic Innovation Kimberly-Clark Australia