Consumer products

We are differentiated in the consumer market by our full offering across the innovation cycle and by a unique combination of people and skills that are designed to complement your internal team resources. We have built a deep understanding of global and local markets and pride ourselves in developing an early understanding of your specific needs. Through these qualities we have built trusted and long-term relationships with leading consumer companies.

Currently much of our work is focused in the personal care, household and food & beverage categories. Within each of these areas, we work with our clients to address current market trends, including:

• Combination products
  Many consumer companies are now looking to combine consumables with durables. We can help you integrate design-driven parameters with commercial focus, providing options for trade-off of functionality and value between the consumable and durable element of the product.
• Personalisation
  Rapid evolution in personalisation of products and product placement is being met through consumer and point of sale innovation. We understand how consumers interact with products and use output from focus groups and unique stimuli to build personalisation into durable and consumable components.
• Smart home
  Identification and integration of technologies from diverse industries into small domestic appliances, white goods and home care has enabled us to create products that meet new standard of performance and sustainability.

Success requires capturing consumer insight and integrating market needs into concept scenarios using simple technology options that deliver portfolio growth. Our end-to-end offering means that we are well placed to help with these activities.

Our expertise

• The creation and delivery of a multi-award winning, landmark mobile money transfer and payments service. Designed for use in emerging economies where banking infrastructure is either poor or expensive, the service has proved to be safe, reliable, easy to use and cheap for anyone with a mobile phone. The rapid take up of the system exceeded all expectations and is now firmly established in several countries around the world and used by many millions of satisfied customers
• A radically new approach to consumer shower technology. Working in close partnership with our client, we defined the parameters for a new electronic, remotely controlled shower mixer valve. Subsequent to detailed product development, we assisted our client throughout the manufacturing support phase including guidance on safety approvals and EMC testing. The product rapidly became our client’s best-selling product and positioned it as a true innovator
• Steering a food company into ground breaking science to solve a cost-of-goods challenge worth $100m/year. Over a three year programme, we have conceived the scientific approach, tracked down the best-in-class university partners and project managed these academics in pursuit of fundamental scientific discovery to deliver a huge commercial prize. The project is currently (2010) live, and has set the blueprint for R&D networked research with our client
• Taking lessons in diagnostics from the medical industry we have conceived and developed a beauty device that will put our clients’ brand in a different league from its competition – differentiation through efficacy. From business need - to in store prototype in under a year, we’ve incorporated not only net-new technology but true to-brand industrial design and presentation. Its one of a new breed of devices for the personal care industry.