The power of invisible control

Welcome to Legacy Beyond Profits, where we explore what it really means to build a business that leaves a mark for the right reasons.

Most executives treat product innovation as brand visibility: distinctive features, patent walls, corporate logos everywhere. This creates vulnerable differentiation where competitors reverse-engineer advantages while customers retain switching flexibility, forcing constant investment in marketing to maintain relevance.

Building legacy through sensory infrastructure requires invisible courage: systematically embedding proprietary chemistry into competitors' products while training the talent that makes those formulations irreplaceable. Today we examine how visionary companies discover that controlling inputs creates more durable advantages than controlling brands, transforming commodity molecules into sensory monopolies through disciplined expertise.

From brand visibility to input control

1. Embedding proprietary chemistry into competitors' product portfolios

The most resilient companies control what customers need rather than what they buy. This infrastructure approach creates dependency relationships where switching costs arise from technical integration rather than marketing loyalty. Givaudan formulates the chemistry that makes Tide smell like Tide—brand owners cannot change suppliers without risking catastrophic product failures.

2. Training talent to ensure technical lock-in across generations

Smart organizations establish systematic talent development that creates industry-wide dependency on their methodologies. Givaudan's Perfumery School has trained approximately one-third of all perfumers working today—a "knowledge monopoly" ensuring that decision-makers throughout the value chain learned their craft using Givaudan's proprietary systems. Alternative approaches become technically unemployable. An entire generation of practitioners trained exclusively on your platforms creates competitive advantages that compound for decades, outlasting any patent.

3. Co-creating solutions before products exist to maximize stickiness

Input suppliers achieve unbreakable positioning by embedding into customer R&D processes before final products crystallize. Givaudan doesn't wait for P&G to request a new detergent fragrance—their chemists sit inside P&G's innovation labs, shaping product concepts from inception. This transforms vendor relationships into strategic partnerships where the supplier's expertise defines what products can become. Brands depend not just on molecules but on the creative intelligence that designed them.

4. Accepting invisibility as strategic advantage rather than brand weakness

Sensory infrastructure providers understand that consumer anonymity creates commercial durability. Givaudan deliberately avoids end-user recognition, focusing instead on making brand owners successful while retaining intellectual property control. Chemistry that makes their brand work eliminates the need for visibility—the dependency relationship provides all necessary leverage.

How Givaudan built an $8.5 billion empire by owning the world's senses while remaining invisible

In 1946, Jean Carles faced an industry crisis. Fashion houses were begging for fragrances—Schiaparelli wanted something shocking, Dior needed an identity—but perfumery couldn't scale. Master perfumers hoarded secrets like medieval alchemists, training successors only when age forced their hand. The apprenticeship model created bottlenecks: aging specialists refused to document formulas, fearing protégés would surpass them. Carles, already the nose behind Shocking de Schiaparelli, made a heretical choice. He would systematize the craft that elders claimed could only be learned through mystical intuition.

The Givaudan Perfumery School opened that year in Grasse, introducing structured methodology for memorizing natural and synthetic materials. Students could now develop independently rather than waiting for masters to share secrets. Industry veterans predicted failure—you cannot teach art through memorization, they scoffed. Carles ignored them. He created exercises forcing students to identify 500+ ingredients blindfolded, building olfactory databases in human memory.

Seventy-nine years later, the gamble paid off spectacularly. The school trained perfumers responsible for approximately one-third of all fragrances on the market today. That statistic understates the monopoly. Graduates spread throughout the industry—working for competitors, consulting for brands, teaching at rival institutions—but they all speak Givaudan's molecular language. The school accepts only 7-8 students annually for its four-year program. Those who complete the training memorize over 600 raw ingredients, many of which are Givaudan's proprietary molecules protected by confidentiality agreements.

This compounds daily through graduates like Jacek Laszczynski, who finished in 2025 and joined Givaudan's Paris Creative Centre. Every fragrance he creates for luxury clients uses molecules he learned during training. He's not constrained by company policy—he simply doesn't know how to formulate with alternative ingredients. Multiply this across hundreds of perfumers, and you've built a talent monopoly worth more than any patent portfolio. Givaudan holds over 5,000 patents, but the real moat is the army of trained noses who can only work with Givaudan's chemistry.

P&G's Tide detergent carries a distinctive scent optimized for the product's pH level and delivery system—a Givaudan formulation sold under strict confidentiality. The intellectual property belongs to Givaudan. P&G owns only the right to use it in Tide. Switching suppliers means recreating a sensory experience that defines billions in brand equity, a catastrophically risky proposition for fragrance comprising less than 2% of production costs.

The model survived its first major test in 2008 when James Krivda, a Givaudan vice president, left for competitor Mane USA allegedly carrying 616 proprietary formulas. Givaudan sued for trade secret theft, claiming Krivda provided competitors a windfall without the expense and time lag of reverse engineering. The lawsuit revealed the industry's vulnerability to employee mobility—and the formidable switching costs protecting incumbents. Even with stolen formulas, competitors couldn't easily replicate Givaudan's customer relationships because brands feared the perception risk of changing their products' sensory signatures.

LVMH provided the ultimate validation in 2011. The luxury conglomerate, frustrated by supplier dependency, built its own fragrance compounding facility outside Paris to produce concentrates for Miss Dior Chérie and Kenzo Flowers—scents previously sourced from Givaudan. The move required massive capital investment prohibitive for smaller brands. Rather than threatening Givaudan's model, LVMH's vertical integration proved the moat's strength: only the world's largest luxury conglomerate could afford to escape the chemistry lock-in.

The financial results vindicate the invisible architecture strategy. Revenue reached CHF 7.4 billion in 2024, with operating margins of 22.6% in Fragrance & Beauty—margins reflecting intellectual property pricing power rather than manufacturing efficiency. Givaudan has increased dividends for twenty-three consecutive years since its 2000 listing. The company controls 18% of a $40 billion global market where four players command 70% of all sensory inputs for consumer products. While consumer brands fight for shelf space and marketing attention, Givaudan operates as the silent architect—making brands successful while retaining the intellectual property that makes success possible.

From strategy to legacy

Sensory infrastructure demolishes the assumption that competitive advantages require consumer recognition. Givaudan proved that controlling chemistry creates more durable moats than controlling brands—training one-third of the world's perfumers over 79 years while embedding proprietary molecules into competitors' products built an $8.5 billion empire invisible to billions experiencing its formulations daily. In markets where technical capabilities eventually commoditize, permanent advantages belong to whoever controls invisible infrastructure that entire industries cannot function without. The most powerful legacies emerge from making others successful while retaining the intellectual property that makes success possible.