NPD (NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT) as a superior process in the organization

Question: How did you manage marketing when you had over 5,000 products? What helped you navigate such a sea of SKUs?

Daniel Szafulera.: Tools are a "strange" industry in which the breadth of the product range is never optimal. Today's supplier market (mainly from Asia), as well as the huge product and brand diversity, can be said to force this "crazy" race for the breadth and depth of the offer. The consumer, but also the store, or professional user, is not satisfied with a narrow offer. On the other hand, a wide offer increasingly often causes more and more problems when choosing "the right" product option/variant. The problem is not only the consumer, but also the seller/store, or trader. The high pace of change, as well as the growing number of products, force suppliers to use increasingly advanced techniques for presenting the offer, implementing new products and the sale itself. We have approached the processes of optimizing the offer several times (so-called assortment cuts and reductions), but at the same time suppliers showed more and more NEW PRODUCTS at subsequent fairs, and the competition, instead of narrowing the range, expanded it, brands instead of disappearing, new ones appeared.

The most important activities that helped to organize this process were:

Defining NPD (New Product Development) as the overarching process in the organization.
In a company offering over 5,000 SKUs, practically everything revolves around NPD , i.e. all other processes are a result of an effective implementation process and offer replacement/refreshment.
Managing key areas in one of the companies, where I was responsible for marketing and product development , in the first years I focused primarily on the PRODUCT and BRANDS, because these areas required decisive action. Then, COMMUNICATION and building a position in ONLINE went "to the workshop".
Of course, the mega important area was the TEAM and, above all, its strengthening , but also the necessary modifications (adjusting structures, combining teams, shifts, reductions)
The product offer was divided into three main groups: NEW, CURRENT, SALE
NEW PRODUCTS were introduced in so-called WAVES, plus/minus coinciding with the seasons: SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER (other companies introduce new products "in a continuous manner", i.e. when a product appears, it is included in the offer, salespeople have a huge problem keeping up with changes in the offer, which very often results in ineffective implementations. So the product is OK, but an overworked and untrained sales representative misses a good product, because he deals with current topics and products that he knows, and time flies... and the new product does not sell).

For us it looked different:

FALA (WAVE) aggregated products into internally coherent GROUPS
GROUPS were presented at the NEW trainings for PH
The entire implementation was supplemented with a STARTER PACKAGE of training-argumentative-sales materials, including: presentations, argumenters, catalogues, samples, display standards, POS materials, and ready-made PROMO CAMPAIGNS accompanying the introduction of NEW PRODUCTS.

The salespeople were: informed, trained, equipped with support materials, products were in stock and the integration of all these activities over time gave incredible impact. The effects were visible in the results.