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Strategic Foresight | Customers & Community

How DMK Group Established A High-Performance Trend Management

Sophia Hübner
by Sophia Hübner
14 May 19
How DMK Group Established A High-Performance Trend Management
The identification and interpretation of trends are some of the most important activities in innovation management. Trends reflect consumer needs and changing consumer behaviors over time. DMK Group, one of the leading dairy companies in Europe, is faced with new technologies, changing customer habits, and a fierce international competition in its industry. The early identification of new business opportunities on the basis of relevant food trends is becoming an essential task to meet future challenges.
 
Free Download: Identifying Business Opportunities Based on Food Trends
 

The Challenge

Early identification of business opportunities based on relevant food and technology trends

Innovation at DMK Group:

  • Limited resources for trend management
  • Time-consuming aggregation, evaluation and documentation of scouting results
  • Manual trend scouting activities
  • Knowledge sharing within the trend scouting community needs improvement
  • No integrated network of internal trend scouts

Supported by ITONICS Radar and ITONICS Inspirator, DMK Group implemented a powerful trend management process from trend scouting to the derivation of new business opportunities and scouted over 2,000 relevant inspirations in five food trend areas with only a small scouting team.

Crucial for the success of our project was ITONICS’ expertise in trend management. We were not just looking for a software partner, but for someone who is familiar with the topic and who we can trust. - Barbara Siegert, Head of Innovation / Corporate Strategy, DMK

ITONICS Inspirator App for trend collection ITONICS Trend RadarITONICS Trend Radar


A High-Performing Trend Management Unit

DMK established an integrated trend management process from trend scouting to business opportunities.
  • Reduced time to collect, aggregate and analyze trend knowledge
  • Better and faster recommendations on business opportunities for the individual business units based on profound trend knowledge
  • Trend management unit at DMK is still run by two full-time employees only

The dairy company developed an efficient trend scouting network consisting of internal and external trend scouts.
  • Successful integration of internal trend scouts that collected more than 1,500 relevant inspirations at 30 trade fairs and conferences within one year
  • Increased accuracy for the trend identification thanks to the integration of external and internal trend knowledge
  • Accessible trend knowledge for the whole community and resolution of individual data silo

About DMK

With around 7,700 employees at more than 20 locations in Germany, the Netherlands and other international hubs, Germany’s largest dairy cooperative processes milk into food of the highest quality. The product portfolio ranges from cheese, dairy products and ingredients to baby food, ice cream and health products. Brands such as MILRAM, Oldenburger, Uniekaas, Alete and Humana have earned the trust of consumers at home and abroad, making the company an established player in its home markets and selected target markets around the globe. As one of the largest suppliers to the German food retail industry with a total revenue of 5.6 billion euros, DMK Group is one of Europe’s leading dairy companies.
 

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