Address
268 Bath Road
Slough, SL1 4DX
Phone
+44 (0)1753 708 529
Overview
This client, a global organisation, operates in a category where product innovation and New Product Development (NPD) is key to maintaining market share, growing sales, and building competitive advantage. The client launched a number of new products into the market, but did not have a standard, defined approach in how to track the “success” and performance of their new products.
Wessex created a customised tool to track a suite of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) over time to determine the “success” of each product. Moreover, the tool allowed the client to use leading indicators to predict how sustainable each NPD was early in the launch cycle.
The Challenge
The team responsible for tracking the success of NPD in the category did not have the knowledge, time, resource, or expertise to deliver on this project.
The client also operates in a number of different markets; one key aim of the project was for Wessex to devise and create an approach that could be implemented across markets, and also across categories if so desired.
The tool had to be simple-to-use, easy to interpret, and clearly identify how each new product has performed since launch. It also had to be accessible to their team so that they could act quickly and decisively when needed.
The Solution
With data originating from different processes, systems, and markets, Wessex recommended our data management service; from accessing and downloading data, to cleansing, harmonising, and standardising data to ensure consistency and robustness. The data was further enriched through the creation of new sales rate metrics that utilised base components retrieved in the raw data from the local databases.
Sitting on top of the enriched dataset is a customised tool designed to allow users to quickly evaluate and identify how each NPD was performing in the category. This enabled the client to determine whether decisive action was required from the KPIs available.
Both the data management process and tool was built to be scalable and flexible; allowing for new products and new markets to be reported quickly and efficiently, and for the data to be updated as frequently as required by the client to track their NPD performance.
The Result
The customised tool allowed users to:
- Predict the sustainability of each new product early in its launch cycle – the client was able to predict how sustainable each NPD was in-market in the first 8-12 weeks of launch
- Establish whether the performance of each new product sits in the top 20%, middle 50% or bottom 30% of product launches in that category
- Identify in a timely fashion how each NPD was performing in the category, and pro-actively introduce a plan to support underperforming NPDs
- Understand how incremental the sales generated by new products are to the existing base business
- Analyse the performance of their NPD versus key competitors
