Research & Development (R&D) Support
Manufacturers and Brands are consistently looking for ways to innovate and improve their products, in order to increase consumer loyalty and beat competitors at every price point.
Successful product development hinges on 2 factors;
- Understanding what attributes consumers really value in the product, and then,
- Ensuring you product beats the competition in these attributes
How Intertek helps the Manufacturer or Brand:
- Determining key areas where consumers want to see innovation: Intertek Performance investigates with your engineering and marketing teams to understand which features and performance attributes are most (and least) important to the consumer. Who is your target customer? What do they care about in your product?
- Developing repeatable and specific evaluation protocols: using the key areas identified as important to consumers, Performance develops a test plan specifically for your product. These protocols are repeatable and specific such that future testing can be conducted to compare newly innovated products to past iterations.
- Identify the competition and determine performance: working with your marketing teams, Intertek identifies a selection of competitor products and tests using the evaluation protocol to identify areas to improve the product to be more competitive.
- Analysis and insight: With data collected per evaluation plan, Intertek Performance analyses test data to draw out areas for improvement and innovation. This could flag a key gap in performance compared to the competition, or a specific strength that could form the basis of next season’s marketing campaign. Analysis often highlights ‘over-engineered’ products where cost can be saved reducing developments efforts in areas where your product already dominates, or in areas which are little valued by consumers. Armed with this insight, your engineering teams can develop the most cost effective innovation plan to beat the competition.
