Much has been said and written about the benefits of being data-driven – improved processes, higher levels of efficiencies, developing better products and services, lowered costs, enhanced customer service, more brand loyalty, and so on. But the fact is establishing a data-driven culture is fraught with challenges, and this is especially so in the realm of external data which is where most of the real golden nuggets lie.
For those that are able to do it right, the pay-off is huge. According to a recent Deloitte study, organizations with the highest propensity to leveraging data-driven insights in their decision-making processes were twice as likely to have significantly exceed their business goals.
Nomad Foods is one company that took the leap with Skai, and by harnessing the power of this award-winning advanced analytics platform, were able to triple product success outcomes and drive sustainable growth, even with product lines that were previously faltering and even through the current pandemic.
“Skai gives us the confidence to make the right business decisions by providing a 360-degree view of all the influences that may impact future demand from customer sentiment to market innovations.”
Traditional Market Research Is Fragmented and Subjective
UK-based Nomad Foods is Europe’s leading frozen food company and one of the largest in the world. It has a footprint that spans across 13 European markets and boasts a portfolio that includes leading brands such as Bird’s Eye, Findus and iglo.
Before Skai, the company primarily leveraged traditional market research and social listening to inform its product decisions. Many of the insights these companies provided were limited to a single domain (e.g., observations of consumer behaviors); dependent on analysts’ opinions, rather than objective data sets; and/or were identified too late in the trend cycle to be actionable and valuable. Predictive analytics were more focused on media spend as opposed to product forecasting.
Management knew that to remain competitive and innovative, they needed to leverage more data faster in order to surface insights that would lead to positive results. Specifically, Nomad sought out a means to:
- Continually mine and monitor a multitude of different types of external data sources
- Identify early multimodal signals of ascendant consumer trends
- Achieve detailed consumer sentiment analysis around specific product variables
- Guide decisions based on evidence and facts
Advanced Analytics Provides Quantifiable ROI
By continually connecting and harmonizing a wide range of data sources, Skai’s advanced analytics platform has helped Nomad identify relevant macro trends in their infancy and relate them to the overall market landscape and their own product portfolio. This has led to new ways of managing the product development lifecycle and uncovering new products to bring to market.
The Skai platform has removed much of the guesswork around innovation by helping the company identify where to focus their investments and efforts. The depth and breadth of insights has resulted in a number of demonstrable business wins, notably a three-fold increase in new product launches that remain on store shelves for more than two years.
Predictive Insights Shape New Product Line and Successful Messaging
In particular, Skai played an instrumental role in helping the company turn around the fortunes of its Fish Fingers and frozen vegetable product lines. The company identified both as “Must Win Battles” after they suffered a multi-year period of declining sales. Skai’s platform helped to surface the claims that would resonate best in a changing marketplace. These insights informed the brands’ successful relaunches, which have since sustained multiple consecutive years of growth.
More recently, Nomad successfully launched a new line of frozen pea-protein-based meat alternatives based on white space opportunities identified through the Skai’s platform. By looking at the volume of consumer discussions on the topic as compared to product availability on the market, it became clear that this was an unmet need that the company was well-positioned to capitalize on. By further examining sentiment analysis, brand managers were also able to shape product messaging around specific claims that would resonate with target consumers.
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*This blog post originally appeared on Signals-Analytics.com. Kenshoo acquired Signals-Analytics in December 2020. Read the press release.
