For me, as Head of Product Development here at Vectair, the key word through this pandemic has been ‘adapt’. My colleagues and I have had to adapt to our customers ever changing needs at greater speeds than ever before. At Vectair, we’re known for our adaptability, innovation and our forward thinking, but even we were caught off-guard by COVID-19.
In March and April, suddenly a lot less people were buying air fresheners. When your global best seller is an air freshener, you may have to adapt fast. Luckily for us, we’re known as much for our hygiene innovation, as we are for our pioneering aircare. Demand for hand cleaners and hand sanitizers has increased dramatically – as has the means to dispense these essentials. So as a Product Development team, we’ve been focusing on creating products that add value to our existing offering.
Proactive product development
While working from home, we’ve been proactively looking at ways to help our line of hygiene products. We’ve introduced Dispenser Stands for both EMEA & USA, and new personal & professional instant hand gels.
Communication within our Product Development team has allowed us to be agile. It’s helped generate new ideas, plans and strategies for our products. One obstacle we’ve encountered is the availability of feedback. We love to get detailed, yet swift, feedback on products but working remotely has made that ‘luxury’ difficult.
Microsoft Teams however has softened this impact and we’ve been able to adapt well – actually better than before perhaps!
Along with our Supply Chain Director, Keith Johnson, we have team meetings twice a week to go through work loads. The Product Development Team look at the priorities and regularly bounce new ideas off each other. This can actually be easier from the home than the office at times. Some of the normal processes have been disregarded to get products to market quicker, but it’s been deliberate and anything but damaging. I would like to think that it’s not undermined the quality of our products – we’ve just thought about them differently.
Although I personally miss the face to face interactions with the team, you do quickly learn how to adapt. As Paul Wonnacott, Vectair’s Founder has said previously, adapt or fall behind.
COVID-19 has made us as a Product Development unit realize that there are always better ways of designing things. Just because we’re used to the ‘normal way’ it doesn’t mean there’s not a better way. The pandemic has helped reinforce principles that there is nothing wrong with change.
In fact, change can be a very positive thing.
Robert Dix | Head of Product Development | Vectair Systems
