“Anyone who launches new products will immediately appreciate the power of this resource to influence design direction, target appropriate price points, and select materials with high consumer appeal. What I love most is that it facilitates open and powerful discussions across the marketing, design and business teams. It minimizes reliance on “the gut feel” of just one individual in an organization and helps create a unified vision for success.”
Portfolio analysis can take a number of forms and contexts. Generally in the marketing context it refers to an examination of fit between products offered and the needs and wants they fill. Too many products for the needs profile could represent waste and inefficiency, too few could reflect missed market share and sales opportunities. We have a number of tools and techniques to help marketers get to the right product mix.
We have a number of tools and techniques to help marketers get to the right product mix. One of our most powerful tools is also proprietary to Design Research. That is our Assortment Styler™. Assortment Styler has at its heart a unique taxonomy of colors, styles, patterns and materials that we use to classify and profile product categories for our clients. By comparing client offerings with competitive or category offerings, we are able to illuminate market gaps for our clients to address and we are able to point clients to areas of their assortments where they are over assorted. By tracking designs, colors and styles over time, we are also able to quantitatively document and forecast trends over time.