Whirlpool 2004 Annual Report Download - page 11

9
Building Trade Partner Relationships
Our trade partner strategy is based on differentiating
ourselves through value-added partnerships to deliver
innovation and unmatched purchase experiences to our
customers. As a result, we share our in-depth
understanding of consumers and their purchase
experiences with our trade partners to help them
understand the value of innovation and customer loyalty.
We also help our trade partners apply our branding
and consumer knowledge to the benefit of their own
businesses. Together, we create innovative training
programs, exciting brand-focused product displays, and a
superior purchase experience for customers. We collaborate
behind the scenes as well, sharing information about
consumer patterns and sales forecasting, and integrating
supply chain systems.
Thousands of trade partners have visited our
Insperience Studio retail showroom in the United States to
better understand brand presentation through innovative
floor displays, and to experience effective sales and
customer service training. Whirlpool also provides direct
sales and technical service training to trade partners in
every region of the world, and offers time saving online
tools to simplify routine business transactions.
Additionally, we've developed sophisticated category
management systems to share with trade partners that will
strengthen our existing relationships and create higher-
value, mutually successful results.
We're leveraging these tools, competencies and best
practices around the world to help trade partners
participate directly in providing an unmatched customer
experience with our brands. This strategy delivers value to
Whirlpool as well as our trade partners through better
product mix, increased sales of high-end innovative
products, and higher levels of loyalty for our brands.
Whirlpool offers its innovative products to consumers through a worldwide network of leading trade
partners–retailers, home builders, kitchen designers and architects–who share a common commitment to
creating and delivering a positive customer experience. By working together to satisfy customers, we all
win greater loyalty to our brands and, as a result, deliver better returns to our investors.
Whirlpool Europe marked 15 years of
business in 2004. During its
milestone anniversary, the
organization unveiled the critically
acclaimed series of revolutionary
built-in kitchen concepts entitled
“in.kitchen: design landscapes for a
new built-in experience.”
Based on deep consumer insights
and trends research, in.kitchen is
Whirlpool's vision for built-in
kitchens that are based on the
culinary level and domestic space of
individual users, and are more highly
integrated solutions than those
currently available in the
marketplace. Rather than design
distant product hopes, the project
team created glimpses of possible
domestic experiences that could be
achieved in the near future through
well-orchestrated partnerships within
the kitchen industry.
In creating in.kitchen, Whirlpool is
promoting greater dialogue within
the industry–kitchen designers,
cabinet manufacturers, and others–to
move beyond Whirlpool's traditional
role of providing a high-tech
appliance 'box' to fill a functional
'hole' inside the consumer's kitchen.
The effort has already attracted the
attention of one high-end Italian
kitchen manufacturer to turn the
in.kitchen concept into a reality, thus
dramatically changing the face of
built-in kitchens and how people
experience the domestic “heart” of
their homes.
Design Innovation:
Changing the face of the built-in kitchen industry