Product development

Energy-efficiency, speed, simplicity and individual solutions are some of the needs identified by Electrolux through interviews and home visits to users of household appliances. Consumer insight is at the core of all product development at Electrolux, and in 2010 a large number of households were visited worldwide.

All new Electrolux products are born out of the Group’s process for consumer-driven product development, which is a holistic process for managing products – from the cradle to the grave. The time to market (TT M) differs between regions. For example, TT M in Brazil is only about 18 months. Electrolux focuses on developing products within profitable segments and for markets displaying strong growth. The products are primarily aimed at customers in the premium segments.

In 2010, Electrolux invested approximately 1.9% of Group sales in product development. Product development is based on global collaboration and coordination of launches between various product categories. The number of new products generated by consumer-driven product development has grown rapidly in recent years, providing an improved product offering and a growing number of successful launches.

Electrolux RealLife® is a dishwasher designed for the 21st century. Below you can read more about the underlying process and the successful launch of the product.

Development of RealLife

Several consumer market surveys were conducted to understand the most important factors when buying a dishwasher. An important conclusion was that nobody loads their dishwasher in the same way.

The winning concepts were translated into features and functions such as FlexiSprayTM Arm and RealLife® Baskets to fit and clean items of any size and shape.

The RealLife® dishwasher is developed for the “real life” in a modern household, where consumers want to be able to fit everything into the dishwasher and get everything properly cleaned, no matter how the machine is loaded. RealLife® was launched in March 2010.

Keith McLoughlin on consumer insight

“No product in Electrolux should be produced without a decision regarding the consumer need that it will fulfil. This is one of the best proofs that Electrolux has changed from being a manufacturing engineering led company to be a consumer marketing driven company. This is what we mean when we say Electrolux is the Thoughtful Design Innovator. The message could also be summarized with Electrolux selling line: Thinking of you,” says Keith McLoughlin, President and CEO.