Perfecting product portfolios and performance

Philips puts market intelligence at the center of its personal care category strategy in the MENA region.

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Industry

Healthcare technology including Personal Health, Connected care, Diagnosis & Treatment

Facts & Figures

Employees

80,000 worldwide

Offices

100 worldwide

Product used

GfK Market Intelligence: Sales Tracking

GfK’s monthly Market Intelligence is essential to the success of our personal care product portfolio in the MENA region. We use it at a market, category, and product level to guide our approach. At a market level, we set strategies based on assessing current market performance and size and use this as the basis to forecast ahead. We track our market positioning versus the competition and set targets for our next campaigns. At a category level, we evaluate performance by price and product. The insight is particularly valuable when deciding which products to launch, where, and at what price. At a product level, we use the intelligence to create our marketing and communications strategies and to measure their performance. With our longstanding working relationship, we trust GfK to underpin our strategic planning in MENA and so from time to time we also add custom research. I’m pleased to say we’ve had great success – for instance, when looking to understand specific target audiences or to drive new initiatives."

Nick van der Noordaa

Consumer Marketing Leader MENA, Philips Middle East, Turkey & Africa

Intelligence that is central to the strategy

The intelligence provided to Philips MENA by GfK is central to the team’s product portfolio strategy for the personal care categories. It is crucial to help select the right products to launch based on market performance by price and product.

The team evaluates how products and categories are performing on a wide range of measures against the company’s own KPIs and also versus the competition. The market level analysis is used to understand current performance, forecast how market sizes might evolve in the future, and set targets for the coming year.

Maximizing customized research

Having established such a close working relationship with GfK, Philips not only subscribes to the sales intelligence, but also commissions custom research to address specific challenges. Two recent projects illustrate how the player has used ad hoc intelligence to support strategy development.

In one project, focused on haircare, the teams worked together to create a go-to- market strategy in Saudi Arabia. The challenge in this market was to increase the average selling price (ASP), while simultaneously striving to become the number one haircare brand in the Kingdom.
In a second project, GfK helped Philps MENA understand and develop a suitable approach to reach the desirable Gen Z audience in the region. Here the brand wanted to create the most effective media and communications strategy to reach this desirable target audience. The results of the project are guiding Philips’ strategy and tactics.

A strong partnership

Philips MENA and GfK enjoy a strong working relationship, based on a collaboration that has lasted many years. The team at Philips depends on GfK’s intelligence to support a significant part of the strategic planning for the personal care categories in the region.