From 6-month partner searches to 30-day sprints

Situation

Wella Company’s R&D team is constantly racing against two competing pressures: the need to move fast on highly specialized, niche technical problems, and the reality that their existing supplier network simply doesn’t reach far enough. When Wella’s chemists needed partners for complex materials science challenges, the traditional path was slow, unpredictable, and geographically limited. Searches could stretch six months or more, and often ended with the same familiar faces from the same familiar places.

The team was also stretched thin. With dozens of competing priorities at any given time, Wella’s innovation leads couldn’t afford to spend months hunting for the right external collaborators. As one team member described it plainly:

It's like there are 30 things you could touch equally in parallel at number-one priority. We need this, but we don't know how to manage it.

They needed a way to find the right partners faster and to do it without tipping off competitors on sensitive strategic areas.

The approach

Focused requests, kept confidential

Wella partnered with Halo to replace ad hoc outreach with structured, targeted innovation requests: privately posted briefs that reach a global network of researchers, startups, and commercial suppliers without revealing the company’s identity or strategic intent.

Working closely with their Halo customer success team, Wella launched multiple focused requests targeting niche technical challenges: areas where deep expertise is rare and existing supplier relationships simply don’t cover the ground. Each brief was carefully scoped to attract the right types of partners while keeping Wella’s specific application areas and strategic intent confidential.

Halo’s team handled brief drafting and scouting outreach, significantly reducing the burden on Wella’s already-stretched R&D team. Private request settings ensured Wella’s name and focus areas remained confidential throughout the process.

The results

Partners found faster, from places they weren’t looking

Across multiple requests launched in late 2025, Wella’s team received high-quality proposals within days of going live, including during the holiday period when traditional outreach would have stalled entirely.

Response times consistently beat expectations, with the Wella team committing to 72-hour turnaround on proposal reviews, a cadence that kept the pipeline moving and signaled to innovators that Wella was a serious, responsive partner.

I think we got three more proposals today. Which is insane.