Driving Category Leadership for an Office Products Manufacturer
Client Situation
Our client was a major office products supplier who was experiencing flat to declining growth and eroding margins. Office super stores had been in the process of consolidating and, as a result, were squeezing vendor margins. At the same time, private label competition had increasingly stolen share and increased margin pressure. In addition, a smaller competitor introduced new innovations that threatened to displace this office products supplier at many of its key retailers.
Demand Strategy Approach
Using our Demand Landscape approach, The Cambridge Group identified the office products manufacturer's most valuable customers. We developed new insights into key need states and uncovered what was most valuable and motivating to these customer targets. Based on these insights, we rebuilt marketing programs, merchandising, product claims and new product development efforts – ensuring our client's category leadership.
Results
One year after completing the strategy:
- Increased sales month after month and trending toward a 20% increase
- Nearly doubled sales of high performance products, significantly improving margins through trade-up
- Launched new products based on key insights
- Category captain now displacing most competitors
- Currently tapping into equity extension options for future growth
- Only major retailer not to follow merchandising recommendations suffered sales decline of 8% and later implemented changes