Product and cost optimization research for cheese

Sector- FMCG
Business Practice- Innovation & Product Development
The Need
Product optimization to improve the profitability in KSA, Egypt & Lebanon
Our Approach
A Quantitative research with both rationalization & superiority objectives. To fuel growth by assessing the level of risk (among the core brand users) of launching a cost-optimized recipe. To validate the brand superiority (vs. competition) driven by the new cost-optimized recipe.
Design: Two core & distinct objectives led to two different methodologies tailored to each objective. Products tested in a controlled environment (taste being the main focus). Sequential monadic test.
The Outcome
For the product rationalization objective, the research helped in decision-making, by comparing the new cost-optimized recipe with the current recipe, on key action standard measures. Alienation/potential risk was estimated, if the client decides to move to the new recipe.
For the product superiority objective, the research helped in decision-making, by comparing the new cost-optimized recipe with key competition products, on key action standard measures, among the category users. The forced product preference helped the client to take a decision, wherever products were at parity when tested monadically. Mapping all the products on all the attributes visualized the grouping/ relationship between products & attributes.
The performance of the new recipe was also benchmarked with the norms database for the category, to check if it meets the top 25 percentile norms criteria. For diagnostic understanding, correlation & driver analysis were done to understand the inter-linkages between the attributes & their hierarchy. Attributes were prioritized for improvement based on the performance of the new recipe on the respective product drivers. Further, the direction of product improvement was identified using the penalty analysis, making the research recommendations very actionable.
Client Testimonial
“Great stuff. The report was well integrated, it also delved into the past learnings and benchmarked against the success norms. The directions for product improvement are very clear.”
Senior CMI Manager