Remington Products, manufacturer and distributor of electric shavers and accessories, grooming products, hair care appliances, wellness products and other small consumer electronics, has long looked to The NPD Group for market information that helps the company fulfill its mission of "providing the best performance and value in the marketplace." Recently, Remington's Vice President of Marketing, Ron Krassin, spent a few minutes discussing with us how his company applies NPD market insights to important business decisions that have an impact not only on Remington itself, but also on the more than 20,000 retail outlets that sell Remington products.

NPD: From your perspective, what has been the greatest benefit of using NPD sales and marketing information?

Remington Products (Ron Krassin): Using NPD information increases our credibility – we know the numbers we use are accurate when we enter discussions with customers and as we face important internal decisions.

NPD: What kinds of business challenges has NPD information helped your company resolve?

Remington Products: NPD information helps us identify and pinpoint competitive successes and failures as well as our own successes and failures. It uncovers what's behind the numbers. We also use it to help guide our product development efforts. Where we see success in a certain area of the market in which we already operate, we can build on that success by developing and launching related products. If we see competitive success in an area in which we do not compete, we can respond by launching products to fill that gap. NPD market information helps us identify and capitalize on the robustness of certain areas of our market.

NPD: How is NPD information used across your company?

Remington Products: Everyone at Remington is interested in what's happening in the marketplace. Marketing is where it starts, where NPD information is broken down. Then the information is filtered to different groups throughout the company and applied to a variety of business decisions. For example, product development and sales rely on NPD's insights, although they generally don't access the information directly. Our marketing group utilizes NPD information most frequently, identifying business issues and then driving the information through the company.

NPD: In what ways has NPD information been valuable to your business decision-making?

Remington Products: At Remington, we use NPD information to help evaluate how much energy we want to apply to different areas of the market. It is also very valuable when we plan to enter new categories.

NPD: What would you say to manufacturers or retailers considering NPD's sales and marketing services?

Remington Products: I have found NPD's account managers to be bright, responsive and attuned to my specific business issues. While NPD is a service provider, we also consider them our partners. NPD is a valuable resource. They always want to see us using their information more rather than less, and they are willing to demonstrate how we can apply the information to specific challenges. I have been very pleased with that.