Last June we launched a survey to better understand the expectations of the food industry and consumer products on the theme of ROI of innovation and in particular the perception of companies. I invite you to discover the key figures that emerged from this study.
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Due to consumer demands companies need to be able to manage their innovation projects and profit from the experience of past innovations to renew their product portfolio as often as possible. By observing the innovation as a global cycle, companies can view their project from idea to product as a cycle with individual steps that can be reproduced and used as experience for future projects.
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Whatever the food and beverage segment, a product is often changing. Change is the rule not the exception. Companies innovate constantly; even “best-sellers” need updates to remain profitable.
Launching a new product or going to new markets require companies to take many things into account such as documentation, ingredients, labeling, supply, regulations or safety.
Food and Beverage companies often maintain islands of product information spread across different departments and business units, with no overall visibility of product specifications in the company. This leads to high product costs and unstable quality standards. This could be avoided if products are manufactured in accordance with initial specifications.
To ensure specificities consistency, organized processes are key. Raw material, ingredients and product information must remain attached to a finished product at any stage of the lifecycle and being accessible by anyone with right to edit or update the products.
Lascom ensures product specifications management and provides a “single version of the truth” for all raw material, ingredients and product specifications across all divisions, locations, business processes, countries and languages.
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Competition and pricing continue to be top areas of concern for the Food and Beverage industries, and raw material costs persist as an ongoing worry. Yet, in spite of the challenges, the industry is optimistically predicting continued increases in sales, more product offerings and larger workforce through innovation.
Innovation is the new key word in FMCG. For many years, Food and Beverage companies increased growth and margins by improving efficiency in production processes. But now, productivity is not enough.
Brands compete for prime in-store real estate more than ever. For that reason, innovation, speed, accuracy and visual appeal are critical to achieve success. Indeed, innovation is an essential lever for competitiveness. Innovation is one of the best means to add value to products, to get in new market places and to best answer consumers' needs and wants. To remain competitive, it is important for companies to evaluate their business models and offerings frequently and change it if needed.
The graphic below displays the advantages of innovation in the Food and Beverage market.
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A color additive is any dye, pigment or substance which when added or applied to a food or beverage is able of imparting color.
FDA is responsible for regulating all color additives to ensure that foods containing color additives are safe to eat or drink, contain only approved ingredients and are accurately labeled.
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According to an Aberdeen Group survey, the top five pressures driving the FMCG companies are:
Below
volume of companies evaluating the issue as important while developing new
products, in %
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Successful product innovation relies on the ability to collaborate across different departments on key business activities, such as product score-carding, product development, supplier sourcing and management, product labeling and artwork development, as well as issue management. However, collaboration can be extremely challenging. Effective
collaboration between marketing, R&D, quality, sales, procurement, and operations accelerates time to market and increases product success. Poor collaboration means fewer good ideas, less optimal decisions, slower cycle time, and greater risk.
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In the collective mind, soft drinks are for young and dynamic people. Major brands have always focused on the youth market -10 to 24 year olds- but the beverage industry is changing. Pioneers identify huge opportunities in targeting the growing aging population.
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In food companies, products change quickly, as well as the number of competitors in the market. Innovation is important to develop and manage a coherent product portfolio that meets the ever changing consumers' trends. This enables food and beverage industries and retailers to achieve comfortable margins and benefit from a healthy growth. As time to market and finding ways of optimizing it are critical components that directly affect revenue, the ability to rapidly launch new products is a competitive advantage.
This infographic shows the advantages of reducing time to market
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Bolthouse Farms reduces delays, eliminates re-keying, and enables enterprise-wide visibility with Lascom CPG Solution
“Our goal of a single, reliable, and secure source of product information that we can all tap into has been achieved. We're very happy with the support we received from Lascom to make this project a success”
Raj Gandhi, assistant controller operations accounting at Bolthouse Farms
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