| Industry | Manufacturing: Food |
|---|---|
| Annual Revenue | Approx. ¥1 billion |
| Employees | 50 |
| Services Provided | New Product Development / EC Strategy |
This company, which has been manufacturing food in a regional area for many years, had grown to an annual revenue of 1 billion yen as its commitment to ingredient quality and manufacturing methods gained a strong reputation through word of mouth. However, EC sales did not grow as expected, and low profit margins emerged as a management challenge.
When consultations with Meets Consulting first began, the person in charge candidly stated, "We are confident in our products. But for some reason, they don't sell." The underlying issues behind those words were organized into three points.
"We've always heard customers wanting to buy our products as gifts. But we didn't know how to commercialize them, and the barrier between manufacturing and sales made it hard to take action," the manager reflected.
The first thing Meets Consulting tackled wasn't sales data analysis, but customer interviews and manual market research. "I thought they would just analyze data, but they went above and beyond my expectations by conducting gritty interviews and manual searches," a customer later commented. That was exactly the key to unraveling the company's challenges.
Through thorough market and competitive analysis, we discovered that gift demand and latent needs for "customizable sets" were not being met by competitors. By combining purchasing data and search trends, we identified a winning position for the company.
Based on data-driven positioning, we re-articulated the "value the company should communicate." We formulated a brand concept that appeals to gift-giving occasions and planned and developed "customizable gift set" products with revamped package designs.
Just making the product isn't the end. We designed "integrated production and sales meetings" where manufacturing and sales departments moved with the same goals and information, simultaneously improving development speed and precision. We systematically created sales peaks with an annual calendar incorporating mall events.
After launching the new product, it ranked 9th in the Yahoo! Shopping category ranking. Furthermore, sales know-how accumulated with each event participation, and sales expanded to 777% compared to the first event.
More valuable than the numbers was fostering an organizational culture where manufacturing and sales work together as one. "Sometimes opinions clashed, but they always stepped in and led the whole process. Being able to develop and sell products in a short period of time led to confidence across the entire company," said the manager.
"I thought they would just analyze data, but they went above and beyond my expectations by conducting gritty interviews and manual searches. The meetings involved not only the sales department but also the manufacturing department, and even though opinions sometimes clashed, they always stepped in and led the whole process. Being able to develop and sell products in a short period of time gave us confidence."— Manufacturing (Food), Manager
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