Mungo Dunnett Associates: Management and Marketing Consultancy

Product Innovation

Background

We have significant experience in the retail market, working alongside high street retailers, or with combined manufacturing/distribution/retail firms.

A critical issue affecting commercial performance is the ability of these organisations to bring products quickly and attractively to market. The faster-moving the consumer buying trends and the shorter the shelf-life of the product, the more important this is.

We are increasingly being asked to bring these Retail skills into other markets, and the example below concerns a financial services organisation which wanted to raise the level of its product competitiveness in this regard.

They had for some time been promoting themselves as being ‘different’ and ‘more customer focused’, but were aware that there was relatively little that was truly distinctive about their customer offering: their products, the way in which they were packaged and the way in which they were sold were too similar to the bulk of other UK organisations. They were concerned that there was simply not enough substance in their marketing claim that they were ‘different’.

The way in which we approached this work, and the issues affecting our client, indicate the new methods of working which we consider essential if an organisation is truly going to alter the way it appears to its customers.