Market Competence
As the market is moving away from hot tubs and looking for more compelling showering, Moen identified the opportunity to take luxury items to lower price points and make spa-grade showering experiences affordable and accessible daily.
Due to aging plumbing systems, the opportunity is to tap into the remodeling and retrofit market, driven by consumer choice for style and functionality and a dynamic professional renovation segment.
Builders are looking for differentiation, while installers value easier installation and the ability to complete the work in a quality and timely manner.
Customer Insight
America’s middle-market consumers are trading up to higher levels of quality and taste. Additionally, an aging population with disposable income is looking for everyday luxuries.
As consumers tend to trade up to the premium product in essential categories like residential investment and upgrades, businesses are starting to offer a wide variety of new-luxury products and services priced well below superpremium or old-luxury goods. Moen identified the opportunity to shift dollars from whirlpools to showering environments. With new offerings and technology incorporated into everyday products, consumers look into home experiences.
As a result, companies focus on memorable moments and stage experiences at every point of contact with the customer.
Technology Capability
Primary research found that consumers favor adjusting the shower stream to fit their preferences and current mood.
Therefore, one must independently adjust the spray’s coverage, force, and frequency for complete control over the shower stream.
Moen developed the ability to control the shower experience through a technical understanding of the water delivery engines and mechanical adjustability provided by control elements.
This knowledge resulted in multiple control schemes and ways to deliver the water. While four unique water delivery engines have been identified and confirmed at a functional level, several architecture options have been developed for the technology engines and control concepts.
The technology capability combines compatible engines and control schemes into integrated architectures that can be offered as either a stand-alone product or a product upgrade to existing installations. In addition, this ability provides Moen’s upgraded shower experience with access to new construction, repair & replacement, and remodeling.
Product Innovation
Product innovation consists of two distinctive elements: developing a retrofittable system that added water jets and sprays to create a vertical spa and the ability to control the water presentation at each water outlet.
The system utilized Moen’s M•PACT technology that provided for functional and style consumer preference combinations. In addition, the valve architecture allowed for the connectivity of additional outlets to deliver an immersive water experience.
The fine-tuning of the water presentation to the user preferences enabled a varied experience that proved to be cleansing, invigorating, and relaxing through intuitive controls out of the water stream.
New features, like fine mist and sprays, combined with precise adjustability, added to the customer experience of an upscale water spa.
Organization Learning
Moen’s NPD teams started to adopt an exploration and exploitation mindset when tackling some of the most pressing challenges in bringing innovation to the marketplace. The need to align market and technology competence provided the framework to create roadmaps and product development paths that enabled the staged introduction of new functional and performance features to the marketplace while incorporating trends and more contemporary styles into existing product lines.
Firm Renewal
Moen’s Moen’s brand equity started to shift from a stodgy plumbing company focused on hardware towards a current and lifestyledriven home systems company. The shift was part of a strategy that emphasized a 9 to 5 replacement cycle and considered providing customers with expanded choice over the type and nature of the features included in its products, as well as the compatible styles that enhanced their home décor. In addition, the platform approach to product development allowed Moen to provide a more comprehensive customer experience throughout the selection, purchase, installation, and product maintenance cycle.
