MANCHESTER, England, March 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Vypr's recent Innovate 2.0 conference, included key speakers Emma Beale (Waitrose), David Lennox (Iceland), Richard Shotton (Author of The Choice Factory), Ingo Reinhardt (Buynomics) Ben Davies (Vypr Founder) and Bill Heart (Co-Author: The Agile Innovation Playbook), all who reiterated the importance of evolving the approach to innovation in the food and retail industry. Several key themes were prominent throughout the conference: know your customer, do less better and don't be afraid to take risks - but make sure your choices are optimised in every way possible.
Emma Beale, Partner & Head of Innovation at Waitrose shared her experience: "It would have been easy to take the pressure off innovation during the pandemic but instead, focusing on innovation encouraged us to create new roots to market, such as new partnerships with direct-to-consumer companies such as the Mindful Chef range (launching soon), invigorating key trading periods, as well as launching the new Levantine product range. We became laser focused, we did fewer products, bigger and better, optimising the NPD process at every step, from selecting the project team, increasing our focus on return on investment, to using data tools like Vypr to bring customer insight to light. We aimed to get the product right each time."
David Lennox, Head of Development at Iceland Foods Ltd, also had a clear message for fellow product development peers: "The move to online has made everyone innovate and leverage different platforms, forcing us to evolve the innovation process by making us put all the jigsaw pieces together, to put the right product, for the right customer, on the right platform, at the right time. In my experience, innovation is also about changing the approach… by doing something in a new way and having new ideas about how something can be done. Keeping the customer at the centre of the innovation, focusing in on the 'target' audience but striving to set yourself apart from the competition to create a point of difference with your innovation, remains crucial. Settling for "business as usual" will create barriers, so push the boundaries but know your customer and know the platforms, as the opportunities are there."
For information about the Vypr Innovate 2.0 Conference, please see https://innovate-future.com.
Video: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1777723/Vypr.mp4
