The Smart Cube launches Concept Lab to accelerate innovation for CPG businesses

LONDON – 13 March 2018: The Smart Cube, an award-winning global provider of research and analytics solutions, today launches its Concept Lab solution to the Consumer Packaged Goods sector, to enable key business challenges to be addressed through data-based experimentation.

Today’s consumer packaged goods sector is a complex space, which for producers generates an avalanche of data from multiple sources. Used wisely it can deliver robust insights to underpin every decision and tackle today’s challenges head-on; mismanaged, it can swamp internal teams and lead to indecision and paralysis.

Concept Lab blends advanced analytics, big data technologies, specialist data science skills and IP assets, with agile principles of delivery, to address this challenge. The solution enables businesses to drive innovation in a time-boxed and cost-boxed way, and without disruption to wider operations. Concept Lab is highly versatile and can be leveraged to drive visibility into consumer behaviour changes, revenue growth opportunities, and supply chain improvements.

After a number of successful executions in the retail sector, The Smart Cube is now extending the scope of Concept Lab to CPG.

Rachit Khare, Vice President of Client Solutions at The Smart Cube said,“Consumer-facing businesses have the benefit of access to unprecedented amounts of data, and many see investment in big technology installations as the way to get value from it. But technology in itself is not the answer. Businesses need an agile approach to test new concepts by applying the latest analytics techniques to available data – particularly to capitalise on new information streams, which may not slot easily into legacy technology systems.”

Recent developments in data science, particularly in advanced machine learning and AI, provide a way to tackle some of these challenges more innovatively, and can help businesses keep one step ahead of the changing consumer landscape. Yet many companies struggle to make the most of these new advances due to limited capabilities, prohibitive costs, and long innovation lead times.

Key features of Concept Lab include:

1. Specialist data science skills deployed through scalable cloud technology
2. Proprietary analytics AI/ML framework and modules
3. Embedded assets including data partnerships, ML modules, and proprietary algorithms
4. Best practice discovery, diagnostic, and visualisation templates
5. Agile sprint principles to deliver Minimal Viable Solution (MVS)
6. Collaborative, iterative, and rapid prototype development

Concept Lab delivers wide-ranging benefits when implemented, including:

1. Efficiency of agile approach – see results in weeks and not months
2. Innovation in solution design powered by TSC Assets
3. Faster time to ROI and market

Khare added: “Fast-changing consumer preferences and behaviours have led to the emergence of many new CPG brands, challenging the status quo and driving major market shifts. Market leaders are feeling the pressure but struggle to know how to adapt and can’t afford to waste time and money on the wrong initiatives. Concept Lab enables rapid experimentation around specific initiatives, with results in weeks not months. This delivers accelerated innovation and provides the data-based evidence so essential for businesses today.”