We recently attended the International Home + Housewares Show (IH+H) held in Chicago, IL March 2-5. McCormick Place was filled with the latest products from over 2,200 suppliers. The Show is attended by nearly 60,000 industry professionals. Our first stop was the Pantone exhibit to explore new color trends and explore key visual merchandising concepts. …
Natural organic foods and specialty brands are growing rapidly and gaining mainstream acceptance. This is a huge bright spot in the Food & Beverage (F&B) industry and the big players know it, as was evident at Natural Products Expo West held in Anaheim, California last week. More than 90,000 people attended and thousands of exhibitors…
There’s no turning back. Digital transformation has raised the stakes for innovation. New products and services must go beyond features and functions. The digital customer is king. With the rise of smart connected technologies and the increasing blur between physical and digital delivery, today’s consumers expect complete experiences that more than meet their needs. They…
Having just come back from CES 2019 (Consumer Electronics Show), it’s clear: legacy companies need to step up their digital game. If you don’t have a digital technology strategy, you’ll become obsolete very fast. Even more importantly, you need a customer experience (CX) strategy – experience is key to every value proposition. Hyper-personalization, convenience, intelligence, 24/7 accessibility, and storytelling are essential to engage…
Incite Innovation is a podcast series designed to advance innovation leadership and inspire teams. Featuring Cheryl Perkins, it features fresh insights and incisive guest interviews on key trends, practices, technologies, and ideas. The first two episodes address Collaborative Innovation, Partnerships, and Ecosystems for the Digital Age and Balancing Long-Term Growth with Short-Term Profits. Check out the…
2019 promises to be full of new opportunities to learn from one another and the one thing that is constant will be change! In 2018 we saw changes such as: More and more CPG companies turning to e-commerce for growth and direct-to-consumer connection — the convergence of online with brick-and-mortar, emphasis on the end-to-end consumer…
As we head into 2019, we see some of the biggest CPG trends getting even bigger while others will fade or become less important. So, which trends should you factor into your innovation plans for the next few years? Here’s our take on trends with staying power and growth opportunity: Mega trends across industry The…
How do you successfully build networks and ecosystems as your company moves beyond single solutions and one-to-one collaborations? And how do you tap into the digital capabilities of partners required to expand your market reach and delivery? Open innovation in today’s world has become more complex. Advances in information technology and connectivity have heightened consumers’…
To survive in today’s hyper-competitive world, your company must stay on top of constantly changing markets, technologies, and socioeconomic factors. To be profitable, you must continually enhance and/or add offerings while controlling costs. To grow, however, you must go further – you need a forward-looking strategy and the infrastructure to execute it. You must focus on the top line as well…
Amazon takes aim at unprofitable items, big brands must comply
We’ve blogged previously about Amazon’s focus on growth over profits as well as the necessity for CPG companies to list products online. Changes are brewing, however. According to the Wall Street Journal (12/16/18), Amazon is “having second thoughts [about profitability]…and is pushing big brands to change how they use its site. Inside Amazon, the items…
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