How Atlas Enhanced Product Development with Data-Driven Insights and Consumer-Centric Innovation

Company overview

With over seven decades of experience in the stove industry, Atlas has consistently prioritized durability and practicality. This focus has not only posed significant challenges but has also resulted in remarkable achievements, including production growth, satisfied customers, and increasingly functional cuisine. Atlas Eletrodomésticos was established in 1950 in Pato Branco, Paraná, specializing in the production of handmade wood-burning stoves. In 2018, the company made a significant acquisition by purchasing Dako, solidifying its position in the market

Problem and Pain Points

Having built a rich history spanning more than seven decades, Atlas is now embarking on a strategic journey toward modernization, guided by a consumer-centric and data-driven approach. In this transformative journey, Birdie plays a crucial role in helping Atlas address three key challenges:

• Identifying trends, opportunities, and needs swiftly and validating them to successfully launch products in the market.
• Understanding market trends and the competitive landscape, while uncovering attributes, key selling points, personas, and usage contexts for exploration in product development and optimization.
• Accelerating the product launch process further and establishing a robust, data-driven, customer-centric product management process.

Solution

Birdie’s Feedback Analytics Platform stands as a game-changer for Atlas in their quest to enhance product development. By harnessing Birdie’s capabilities, Atlas gains valuable insights into consumer preferences, effectively addresses product issues, and explores new product opportunities in uncharted territory. Atlas has discovered a comprehensive solution for managing their product feedback lifecycle through Birdie, utilizing it to:

• Consumer Insights: Birdie’s AI-driven analysis deciphers consumer likes and dislikes, aligning new products with customer preferences.
• Issue Resolution: Birdie categorizes feedback, enabling Atlas to efficiently resolve product issues and enhance customer satisfaction.

Market Opportunities: Birdie identifies untapped areas for Atlas to explore, fostering innovation and competitive advantage.

Results

Atlas’ core business specializes in hardware, a sector known for its extended product life cycles, spanning from the development phase to eventual phase-out. This journey can be broadly delineated into four distinct phases:

• Product Development (Up to 1 year): This initial phase involves conceiving, designing, and refining the hardware product.
• Launch (6 months): Following the development phase, the product is launched into the market, accompanied by extensive marketing efforts and customer engagement. During this stage, consumer feedback from new initiatives is relatively limited.
• Production (3 years): The production phase spans the duration during which the hardware product is manufactured and distributed to meet consumer demand. It is during this phase that consumer feedback progressively accumulates.
• Phase Out (6 months): Ultimately, the product reaches the end of its life cycle and is phased out from the market, paving the way for newer innovations.

Throughout this process, the incorporation of Birdie into their operations allows Atlas to diligently accumulate a robust body of evidence grounded in consumer feedback. This invaluable data is leveraged to prioritize both preventive and corrective actions. Through the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and AI classification techniques, Atlas has transformed its ability to swiftly amass a comprehensive dataset. In mere minutes, Atlas can analyze thousands of consumer reviews sourced from 14 prominent eCommerce retailers in Brazil.

This extensive body of evidence empowers Atlas to objectively identify and prioritize pain points based on the most resonant consumer sentiments. This strategic approach enhances Atlas’ capability to effectively address consumer concerns and maintain a competitive edge.

In a recent success case, Atlas prioritized several requirements to enhance the value and experience associated with the launch of their new AgileUp range model. This decision was driven by consumer feedback, and Atlas took proactive steps to address various design elements, including robustness, capacity, and size, as highlighted by consumers in comparison to their previous version.

Conclusion

In summary, Atlas’ strategic journey towards modernization, powered by Birdie’s Feedback Analytics Platform, has been a transformative success story. This partnership has not only allowed Atlas to swiftly identify consumer trends and needs but has also provided valuable insights into market dynamics and competitive landscapes. By incorporating data-driven decision-making throughout the product development lifecycle, Atlas placed the consumer in the center of their innovation pipeline, effectively resolving issues, and capitalizing on untapped market opportunities. The integration of Natural Language Processing and AI classification techniques has revolutionized their ability to amass and analyze consumer feedback quickly. This approach has led to meaningful improvements in product design, as evidenced by the successful launch of the AgileUp range model, firmly establishing Atlas as a leader in the stove industry.