Scaling Innovation With The Duracell Company's Manasa Nalla

Fred Schonenberg
Hello everyone. And welcome to the VentureFuel Visionaries podcast. I'm your host, Fred Schonenberg. Today I'm joined by Manasa Nalla, who is the Associate Director of Product Innovation and Strategy at the Duracell company, where she drives consumer centric innovation and shapes future product roadmaps across multiple markets. 

Over the past nine years at Duracell, Manasa has grown from engineering leadership into senior product strategy, driving global launches, fostering 100 plus partnerships with device manufacturers, customers, and retailers, and delivering significant business growth across both consumer and professional portfolios.

She is also the archetype, excuse me, the architect of proprietary digital innovation tools that translate technical performance data into measurable customer ROI. She is a recognized voice in the innovation space, serving as an innovation judge for CES 2026, which is how we first met, and the Edison awards, giving her a front row view of emerging technologies, shaping the next wave of product innovation. With a background in electrical engineering and an MBA, Manasa brings a rare blend of technical depth and commercial acumen.

Today, we're going to explore how to move from innovation activity to measurable impact. How to scale new product pipelines into a global legacy brand and how to navigate OEM ecosystems and internal priorities and how AI and emerging tech are reshaping product strategy. So please join me in welcoming Manasa to the show. It's so nice to have you. Thank you for joining us.

Manasa Nalla
Thank you, Fred. I'm so excited and thank you for the warm welcome.

Fred Schonenberg
Of course. So you've spoken in the past about shifting from innovation activity to measurable innovation impact. I'm curious about a global legacy brand like Duracell, what does impact mean in that case and maybe how do you define it?

Manasa Nalla
That's a strong question to start with. To me, impact isn't defined by how many products we launch or how many experiments we run, right? It's defined by the measurable or meaningful difference that we create for consumers, customers, or the business itself. And a global brand like Duracell, it can come in different forms.

Like it could be helping improve consumer safety through child safety innovation or introducing a new technology that improves battery performance or improving consumer shopping experience by partnering with retailers or driving cost innovation with more efficient processes. Right? So I see it at the intersection of three dimensions. 

The first one being consumer value, like does it meaningfully improve the user experience or solve a real problem and business performance? Does it strengthen the company's market share profitability or competitive advantage and ecosystem influence? Does it elevate the broader category, set new standards or shape industry direction? If an innovation doesn't meet at least one of these areas, then it's activity, not impact.

Fred Schonenberg
Very interesting. It is one of the things when you think about activity to impact a lot of, especially legacy companies tend to be first to test, but last to scale. They're very involved in the activity of innovation, but it doesn't necessarily move to sustain business growth. What do you think separates innovation programs that just generate buzz to those that maybe generate the impact you were just speaking about?

Manasa Nalla
Yeah. I think the difference lies in the discipline execution, right? Many people can create a buzz around a prototype or a pilot, but sustaining that success requires executional discipline, clear decision frameworks and collaboration across different teams. 

For example, at Duracell, we run a lot of proof of concept initiatives, but the ones that scale are the ones that clearly show measurable impact, support from all the key stakeholders, whether that's internal or external, and a clear roadmap to commercialization. To me, innovation isn't just about ideas. It's about turning those ideas into something that grows and lasts.

Fred Schonenberg
I love that. We talk sometimes about things like a startup petting zoo or innovation theater, and those tend to be the programs that don't sustain. It's when you actually can deliver a meaningful impact that it matters to the business. 

You sit at the intersection of engineering, product strategy. How are you thinking about which of these ideas make it into the product roadmap and which doesn't? There must be so many opportunities to improve the business. How are you filtering which ones to pursue with the rigor that you do?

Manasa Nalla
Yeah, I'm sure different companies have different ways of looking at it, but we mainly look at it from three critical dimensions. We've talked about consumer value and technical feasibility and business impact. A good idea on its own isn't enough. It has to solve a meaningful problem, be technically feasible to deliver at scale and align with the business strategy. Sometimes you can also consider timing and ecosystem readiness, right? 

Because sometimes a brilliant idea has to wait until the market or technology is ready. We've seen this with many products before where they were released before their time. So the roadmap essentially becomes a balance between near-term wins and long-term bets, right? Ensuring we are creating impact without overextending our resources.

Fred Schonenberg
It's such an interesting balance, right? The near-term wins versus long-term bets. And we've seen so many times a technology that you know is going to make a big impact, but the other technologies that need to support it don't align yet. And so it sort of hangs out there and then eventually it has this overnight success, aha moment, even though we've all been playing with it for seven years.

Manasa Nalla
Yeah. Sometimes costs could become prohibitive as well, right? Like you have this great idea. You can make it happen, but it costs you a ton of money. Like I see it especially happening with like electronics industry where like I could have a gaming controller that has tons of features, but it might need a more powerful microprocessor or a semiconductor if that industry hasn't evolved to be as efficient, then my innovation, maybe it's not right time for my innovation to come out. 

Fred Schonenberg
I always think of it. I know we both were judges at CES, which I've been going to for so many years. And every year I go and they have the huge new TV, whatever the technology is, and you look at it and it's a $20,000 television.

Manasa Nalla
Yeah.

Fred Schonenberg
And that's always the reminder to me that like two years later, that TV is going to be $400 at Best Buy, right? And it's like, sometimes you've got to align those costs and the evolution and the scale of the supply and all the good things that can bring down those costs. So you've partnered with over a hundred external partners, everything from device manufacturers to retailers. I'm very curious how you align external partners, priorities, internal priorities, your end consumer or professionals needs without slowing down innovation. I mean, it's a real orchestration.

Manasa Nalla
Yeah. So I think, especially when you're partnering with a lot of different partners, proactive collaboration is key, right? It starts with setting clear expectations and shared goals and early transparency with both internal and external partners and understanding the why behind the ask, not just what or how. It helps tremendously because we tend to focus a lot on what and how it needs to get done. And then we keep trying, we keep forgetting the why behind it.

So once you define the why, I think execution and collaboration becomes more structured with clear decision frameworks. And we also need to make sure that the consumer or the end user, their perspective stays at the front and center. So when everyone sees how their work impacts the end user, it helps balance competing priorities and keeps innovation moving efficiently.

Fred Schonenberg
That's a really interesting North Star because the competing priorities are often what slows this down is, well, I need this to do this. I need this to do this. And at the end, who you're trying to serve is aligned. So if you can use that as the guiding light to kind of overcome those hurdles, it's a very smart way to look at it.

Manasa Nalla
Yeah, we can't be everything to everyone, right? We have to realize that.

Fred Schonenberg
So you built the ProSell cost savings calculator. Maybe if you could tell us a little bit about that. My understanding is it connects performance data to customer ROI. But if you could explain that a little bit and then maybe what role do digital tools and analytics play in making innovation more tangible to customers?

Manasa Nalla
Yeah, so the ProSell cost calculator, it was meant, I designed it for the professional end users, right? So whether that's your hotels or hospitals or manufacturing facilities that are buying batteries in bulk and batteries is such a product where you cannot tell the difference just by looking at the product, right? You have to see it in context or you have to understand how that performs in a specific device.

And when you think about these facilities, they are buying batteries in bulk, they're changing batteries in bulk or on a schedule. To them, the labor cost of changing the batteries is much more impactful, much more higher than the battery cost itself. So essentially what the tool does is showcases how if you have longer lasting batteries, you can extend your schedule and save money by paying less in labor costs.

I mean, obviously you'll pay less in battery costs, but you'll also end up saving less in your operational costs and improving consumer satisfaction, all of that, right? So we kind of went beyond showing the technical performance and then went into showing the customer ROI. So yeah, and then it was incredibly powerful because it turned abstract technical performance into actionable insight for the technicians or for the managers, whoever is managing that facility. So it essentially made our innovation more visible and measurable.

Fred Schonenberg
I think it's so interesting from the previous question, your answer too, of thinking about your customers, the value that they're getting out of this, what the end user wants, that's essentially what this did was this showed, hey, here's the true value of this work that we're doing upstream and how you can measure it.

Manasa Nalla
Right, exactly.

Fred Schonenberg
One of the things I was thinking about as you were talking was with all the different external partnerships that you've navigated, how do you combat the, what I'll call not invented here syndrome, especially with a company as decorated and celebrated and with so many smart people as Duracell, right? How do you still maintain that value outside in innovation or co-development or working with partners, startup collaboration, et cetera?

Manasa Nalla
Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's all about culture, right? And then it starts with the mindset and then the team has to see the external ideas or external partners as complimentary, but not competitive to internal works. And then also sometimes we tend to focus only on sharing success stories, right? Like failure is frowned upon, especially if you partner with an external partner. But as long as you feel fast and you feel forward to me, that's still a win.

So creating those early wins with co-development and partnerships and like showing the benefits of outside innovation hopes. And when, when people see that, that collaboration accelerates learning, it drives impact naturally and it builds a culture about values, partnerships, like co-creation and startup engagement. 

We have a whole system where we engage with these external partners, whether that's universities or startups, right? Or suppliers even, sometimes they could be working on more efficient processes. So I think we have a, fortunately we have a good culture of co-partnering with these external partners and then OEMs too, sometimes it unlocks insights there before they even hit the market.

Fred Schonenberg
Absolutely. So help me understand how maybe a little bit more of a behind the scenes, how you scale innovation within such a global brand and company overall, without getting trapped by the legacy systems or internal politics or just general risk aversion that is so, so natural and actually important in a large legacy business.

Manasa Nalla
It's hard to escape them, isn't it?

Fred Schonenberg
Yes, very, very much so.

Manasa Nalla
But it requires a mix of persistence and influence, a lot of influence and strategic framing of your request, right? And then very heavy on the influence, actually. You need to know who your key decision makers are and build a good partnership with them, make sure that they're on your side when, when, I mean, obviously you have to show the value of your thought process, but you have to make sure that you work with those key decision makers first before it even gets to the working team, right? 

And so I think that creates a relationship across teams and creates a process that balances governance with agility. Both are important. And then sometimes it's also important to pick the right battles, right? Knowing when to push for new approaches and knowing when to adapt to legacy constraints. I think that comes a lot from learning from past product successes or failures. There are a lot of those stories in any company, right? Like we've gone through many different innovation cycles. So it's important to pick the right battle. And over time, delivering repeatable, visible wins, like builds your credibility and trust, makes it easier to influence and scale bigger initiatives. 

Fred Schonenberg
A hundred percent. So I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about this year, you're judging at CES, the Edison Awards that we mentioned. Are there any trends or emerging technologies that you've seen that you think enterprise leaders should be paying attention to?

Manasa Nalla
Very, very good question. So I think I see three big trends, right? So the first one is connected ecosystems that integrate products and services for seamless consumer experiences. It gives them more control, more portability and just more convenience overall. And I think the second one would be smarter energy solutions that not only focus on performance, but also combine efficiency and sustainability.

And the last one, you probably heard it a hundred times, but AI, which is getting integrated into everything, right? But what I'm particularly interested in is the artificial intelligence or the impact of AI coming from a technical or a manufacturing background, right? How it enables tools or systems that enhances decision-making, whether it's the quality of the decision-making or the pace of the decision-making by looking at a lot of the company data from before or testing data from before. And then how it can also spot trends or correlations or deviations in the manufacturing processes. It's like, oh, you added this extra component, which caused this deviation. So I think I would like to see how AI can help accelerate those learnings as well. But I would say those three are the big ones.

Fred Schonenberg
It's very interesting. We run several AI-focused programs for multiple different industries. And what's very unique about AI is that it applies to so many different parts of the business. And so the idea of materials or technology is like from an R&D lens, where can this unlock sort of the internal talent, right? To say, oh, maybe we should look more at this one that we looked at three years ago, but we discounted it for this reason. And I think that's really the excitement that this provides for that space.

Manasa Nalla
I mean, one thing that came to me as you were talking about it again is how it can also accelerate prototyping, right? Like especially in the batteries. Well, it's a physical product which takes time to prototype and validate and test, right? So if AI can look at all of our past data. Because a battery is essentially a mix of different chemical components, right? So you change one, the performance changes. So everything has an impact on the other. So if AI can look through that data and then help, hey, like you've changed this, it impacts this by this percentage. I think that would accelerate the timings for the physical prototyping as well.

Fred Schonenberg
So one of the things we do on the show sometimes, we call it rapid fire, and it's where I ask a series of questions really to get your gut instinct, top of mind, sort of one sentence type of response so that we can get the most out of you in the brief time we have together. So if you're ready, I'd love to ask you a couple of questions about rapid fire.

Manasa Nalla
OK, no pressure. Let's go.

Fred Schonenberg
What do you think is the most overused word in corporate innovation?

Manasa Nalla
Disruption. Real innovation is about creating measurable impact, not just hype.

Fred Schonenberg
That's so interesting. We talk about it a lot internally, is this balance of growth versus disruption and that they're sort of similar viewpoints, but one has such a negative connotation and the other is very, you know, abundance theory. So anyway, what do you think is the most underrated lever for scaling innovation?

Manasa Nalla
I think we talked about it, disciplined execution and cross-functional alignment. Great ideas fail if not all the teams are on the same page and if they are moving together.

Fred Schonenberg
Beautiful. What is one metric every innovation leader should be tracking?

Manasa Nalla
How their innovation creates or enhances consumer experience. Otherwise, it's just activity until it drives real results.

Fred Schonenberg
Which do you think has the potential to create more long term advantage, competitive advantage, OEM partnerships or internal R&D?

Manasa Nalla
Both matter. OEM partnerships unlock insights faster. Internal R&D builds capability and external collaboration accelerates adoption.

Fred Schonenberg
Cool. What do you think is the biggest mistake that product leaders make when they are trying to commercialize new technologies?

Manasa Nalla
Thinking about a new technology or a new feature alone sells. Customers care about outcomes and stories, not features.

Fred Schonenberg
Very good. So one of the biggest things that we get asked is some combination of the question of should we buy, build or partner? Most legacy companies always default to build internally, right? They want to own it. That's the way it's been done. Then they start to get this acquisition bug. And then partnering is something that we actually believe AI is accelerating from that viewpoint. But I'm curious, do you think you should build internally, partner or acquire? Which do you lean towards of those three?

Manasa Nalla
I think for me, co-development hits the balance. You get the speed and expertise of an external partner while maintaining strategic control, which is especially important for big legacy companies to maintain control.

Fred Schonenberg
Agreed. Last one. Innovation creates more value through premium pricing or operational efficiency. And I will say that this question comes out of we've had some people talk about the idea of AI, that everyone says that it's going to create growth and external impact. But the reality is most people are using it for internal efficiency. And so we're trying to unpack this. Is this an AI thing or is this innovation overall? So where do you think innovation, new technologies create the most value? Is it from efficiency or growth?

Manasa Nalla
I think I might have to disagree on both, but I think it creates value and it solves a real end user problem. You do that well, you earn the pricing power while unlocking operational efficiency through scale because you're going to sell more product, you're going to drive up your efficiencies.

Fred Schonenberg
I love it. Well, this has been amazing. Is there anywhere you would like to direct our audience to learn more about you or the work you're doing at Duracell?

Manasa Nalla
Yeah, I mean, I'm on LinkedIn. My handle is Manasa Nalla. I'd love to connect with anyone that has any questions about innovation. I'm always interested in the topic of innovation. So I love to have chats and talk about what their companies are doing, which is what my company is doing. Yeah, LinkedIn would be a good place to start.

Fred Schonenberg
Fantastic. Well, thank you for taking the time to share all the different ways you're sparking change at Duracell and beyond. We really appreciate it.

Manasa Nalla
Yeah, of course. Thank you. It was great to have you here.

Fred Schonenberg
That was really, really good.