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Revolutionizing packaging innovation
Stockholm, Sweden – A new joint venture promises to change the way that companies manage product and packaging development by saving time, reducing costs and removing process inefficiencies.The new joint venture company, Nine, is a packaging innovation consultancy that brings together the inquisitive minds from European paper packaging company Billerud and Scandinavian design agency No Picnic. By leveraging Billerud’s consumer packaging expertise and No Picnic’s branding, design and development capabilities, Nine aims to deliver all the services required to drive packaging innovation forward. Nine takes its name from the nine business processes that it employs to create inventive and cost-effective packaging solutions from development to the point-of-sale. Typically these cross-functional processes involve many people across several different functions or departments. By outsourcing the entire packaging innovation process to Nine, companies now have a total packaging partner responsible for driving sales at every level in the package value chain. In addition to assuming turnkey responsibility, Nine can customize service agreements to cover one or more processes, depending on client needs. “We tackle everything from incorporating brand strategy to conducting cost-benefit analyses to material selection and the technical challenges of engineering packaging to product differentiation and consumer appeal,” says Jon Haag, Nine’s chief executive officer. “This holistic approach to packaging innovation enables us to reduce costs and cut the time it takes to go from concept to consumer from a year or two to just six to eight months.” Increasingly more companies, especially in the retail food, pharmaceutical and fast moving consumer goods industries, are beginning to understand that product development is not a linear process but an integrated one. Those that do stand to gain competitive advantage by working with Nine, according to Haag. “Companies can expect consistency, quality and speed from Nine,” Haag adds. “We are tireless in our efforts to reduce development costs, speed time to revenue, create appeal and increase market share for our customers.” |
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