INNOVATION
To develop market-viable alternatives to smoking, PMI has invested across its business more than $14 billion since 2008 for research, development and commercialization. Stefano Volpetti, the chief consumer officer at PMI, crisply identifies the customer-centric mission statement that frames how those dollars are invested.
“Our business is not about selling a product; our business is not about selling a service,” he explains. “Our business is about changing behaviors.”
PMI is offering adult smokers alternative choices for consuming nicotine. Data from studies suggest that these smoke-free products, while not risk-free, are less harmful than cigarettes. PMI prioritizes informing adult consumers about these research-validated options, emphasizing transparency by detailing their benefits and limitations.
Moreover, PMI is clear that these smoke-free alternatives should not appeal to unintended audiences. The company’s approach is to tell consumers: If you don’t smoke, don’t start. If you smoke, quit. And if you don’t quit, change to smoke-free alternatives that are scientifically substantiated to cause less harm than continued smoking.
Stefano Volpetti, Chief Consumer Officer,
PHILIP MORRIS INTERNATIONAL
The notion of consumer centricity becomes of paramount importance for success.”
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BIN LI, CHIEF OPERATIONS SERVICES OFFICER, PHILIP MORRIS INTERNATIONAL
Technology doesn’t mean anything until it can meet a consumer need or remove a consumer pain point.”
Delivering a smoke-free future means that PMI must disrupt the industry in which it operates — and its own business model. Key to this work is finding talent with the right skills to explore new ideas and challenge the status quo. PMI has brought together individuals from various backgrounds, cultures and experiences so it can access a range of perspectives. The company believes diversity of thought is crucial for fostering creativity and generating innovative ideas.
PMI encourages its technical team members to ask themselves: What kind of challenges do our consumers face? What are their unmet needs that we can help meet? What will encourage adult smokers who don’t quit to switch to a better alternative?
“What I often said is the real transformation, the first transformation, needs to happen inside, in the organization,” says Bin Li, PMI’s chief operations services officer. “In order to change, to transform, you need to build a sustainable, successful team organization to develop superior products to win in the marketplace.”
INNOVATION
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MARKETING
TALENT
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Since 2019, PMI has reduced its overall carbon emissions by 36%, an accomplishment largely credited to the company’s ongoing energy transition.
For shipping, PMI has traded its gas-powered trucks for fully electric and hybrid models. The company is integrating renewable energy sources in its factories to transition away from fossil fuels. By the end of 2025, PMI aspires to have all of its manufacturing facilities be carbon neutral.
“We’re making great progress there, but let’s also recognize it’s a complex topic and ... there’s a lot of work to go,” says Scott Coutts, senior vice president of operations at PMI.
PMI incentivizes action on sustainability by tying progress to key metrics used to measure employee performance.
The company also works closely with the agricultural sector to prevent net deforestation in the 75 countries where it operates. Using external audits, PMI verifies that biodiversity and sustainable forestry practices are in place.
SCOTT COUTTS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS,
PHILIP MORRIS INTERNATIONAL
All of the C-suite executives meet on a quarterly basis as part of our sustainability committee … and we focus on that as a collective to say, ‘How do we transform our business?’”
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INNOVATION
SUSTAINABILITY
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1 Set up as a cross-sectional study, the NHNS relies on household interviews of randomly selected participants to acquire information on physical health, dietary habits and lifestyle choices of Japanese citizens. The NHNS has enabled the annual recording of smoking prevalence in Japan for over half a century. (Surveys were not conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.)