Savings in Working Capital
Today more than ever cash needs to work hard for a business. Typically fragrance stock can account for 10-20% of total raw materials, and that’s before you work out how much is obsolete. Seven has a proven capability to help drive down working capital in your supply chain.
This is supported ongoing by seven’s ability to offer flexible batch sizes and their skill in selecting the most appropriate shipping method for best inventory management.
One business unit benefited from a 50% reduction in fragrance stock, releasing c£700k in cash, and further benefiting from a 50% reduction in fragrance lead-time to ensure lower stock levels were maintained.
Fragrance not working hard enough
PZ Cussons were selling a washing powder in the African market which had a very low impact fragrance. Perfume can be a very strong bond between the consumer and a product and brand – but this one just wasn’t pressing those emotional switches! Seven developed a new fragrance with much more emotional power, but at the same cost.
Too high a dosage
PZ Cussons had an aerosol shower gel which had been given the same fragrance compound as its parent liquid shower gel. But to mask the odour of the propellant it was necessary to put a lot more in. Seven have now re-engineered this compound to smell the same, but by including ingredients capable of masking the unwanted odour at a lower cost, have been able to put in a lot less of the more expensive fragrance ingredients. This is a common error, to imagine that the same compound will suit everything from shower gel to talc, from bar soap to antiperspirant deodorant. Costs can be saved, and results can be improved, if compounds are custom designed for their end products. Let Seven undertake reviews for you: The fragrances will smell the same but your bottom line will look different!
Working to a tight budget
A retail customer has reported higher sales of a ‘value’ positioned washing powder product since we introduced a much more upmarket and sophisticated fragrance – without the need to also reposition the price.
Keep It Simple
Our predecessors may not have been as smart as we are today. For a bar soap with a complex fragrance, Seven were able to reduce the number of raw materials in the compound by 10% – with the consumer, despite many years experience of the original formulation, detecting no difference.
Less is More
Seven re-engineered a hand wash fragrance to reduce the cost by replacing some of the more expensive raw materials. Jackie, Evaluator, describes the new fragrance, designed to smell the same as the original, as actually smelling better than the original – ‘like the same tune listened to on a CD instead of over the radio’. Clearly she doesn’t have digital yet…!
