Kimberly-Clark Corporation business analysis

Kimberly Clark

Virtual Products and Virtual Stores; the Kimberly-Clark Case

Kimberly-Clark is one of the world's largest manufacturers of personal health and consumer goods, and is also engaged in large-scale timber harvesting for the creation of its many paper-based products (Kimberly-Clark 2011). The company has long been a large and stalwart corporation, but has also continued to innovate in all areas of its operation, from product design and development to marketing efforts to channel strategies, with the latter of especial and increasing performance in recent years (McGee 2007). Specifically, the company recently developed a virtual product demo theatre that enabled retailers to experience various scenarios and setups of Kimberly-Clark products in simulations of their store shelves, and has recently expanded this technology to create a self-service software for the retail giant Target (McGee 2007; Kimberly-Clark 2011a). This case will examine the details and impact of Kimberly-Clark's virtual product demo products and services on the company and the industry.

Description of Product/Service

In its first incarnation, Kimberly-Clark's virtual product demonstration capabilities were (and still are) housed in the company's own Customer Immersion and Design Center (McGee 2007). A virtual reality theatre in the facility that is capable of recreating life-size sections of retail stores and thus enables retail managers and other direct customers to experiment with different layouts and interact with products in a variety of ways (McGee 2007; Kimberly-Clark 2011a). Such an innovation marked a major step forward in manufacturer/retailer relations.

Kimberly-Clark did not stop there, however; the physical location of the virtual reality theatre makes for a compelling experience but also requires retail managers or trainers to travel to the site itself in order to engage with the virtual product demo, limiting its pervasiveness and its usefulness (McGee 2007). Working with the Target Customer Development team, however, Kimberly-Clark has rolled out a software and technology package that can be utilized directly by Target retailer managers and merchandising executives, enabling a more widespread utilization of the technologies Kimberly-Clark has been developing (Kimberly-Clark 2011a). It is expected that this technology will directly impact merchandising layouts and strategies in as many as 1,700 Target stores over the next year, and presents another major leap forward in the relationship being built by technology between manufacturers and retailers, and in the channel strategy Kimberly-Clark is pursuing.

Impact on Business

There are several direct and indirect impacts on Kimberly-Clark, its retail customers, and its competitors that result from the technological developments the company has made. Not the least of these is the ability for Kimberly-Clark to provide interactive experiences with newer products, packaging designs, and other innovative elements before any shipments are made or orders are even placed (Kimberly-Clark 2011a). This makes merchandising and layout experimentation far less costly (virtually free, after the initial cost of the technology and its development) and far more efficient for Kimberly-Clark and its retailers (McGee 2007; Kimberly-Clark 2011a).