The Challenge: Growing Internationally Without a Shared Market View
Brabantia operates across many international markets, each with its own teams, habits and
priorities. Over time, this led to fragmented market understanding. Insights differed per country,
GfK data was largely limited to Benelux, and learnings from one market were often extrapolated
to others. As a result, country teams lacked clear external benchmarks, and strategic focus
varied across regions.
As international growth became more important, this fragmentation started to create friction.
Teams held limited views on market size and opportunity, alignment on priorities became more
difficult, and building convincing, data-backed business cases for leadership required more
discussion than evidence.
The Shift: One Outside-In Market Reference for All Countries
Trendata became the shared outside-in market reference across Brabantia. For the first time,
teams could see consumer demand per country, compare markets on equal footing, and
understand category size even where sales data was unavailable. Brand performance could be
benchmarked consistently across regions, and discussions were grounded in the same set of
numbers.
Country managers were trained to work with Trendata themselves, ensuring insights were both
locally relevant and globally comparable.
The Insight: Focus Comes From Shared Understanding. Not Top-Down Direction
With a shared view of consumer demand, clear patterns emerged. Some countries showed far
more growth potential than expected, while others were more mature or saturated. Categories
behaved differently from market to market, challenging earlier assumptions.
These insights directly influenced how Brabantia defined focus markets, prioritised investments,
selected which business cases to pursue, and aligned teams around common goals.
The Impact: Faster Decisions, Stronger Business Cases, Clearer Focus
By using Trendata, teams were able to build stronger, data-backed business cases to support
international growth ambitions. Instead of relying on assumptions, leadership discussions are
now grounded in realistic market data, enabling clearer choices on which markets and product
categories to prioritise.
This shared fact base has improved alignment between HQ and local teams and reduced
subjective debate. Strategic conversations have shifted toward evidence-based decision-
making, with Trendata now embedded in leadership and strategy discussions across the
organisation.
Key outcomes include:
- Stronger and more credible business cases for international expansion
- Clearer prioritisation of target markets and high-potential product categories
Better alignment between HQ and local teams through a shared data foundation - Fewer discussions driven by opinion, more decisions driven by evidence
The Transformation: From Fragmented Views to Strategic Alignment
Trendata became more than a data tool. It evolved into Brabantia’s shared strategic language.
By giving every team access to the same outside-in market reality, Brabantia strengthened its
strategic focus, improved execution across markets, and built a more solid foundation for
international growth.
Today, Trendata plays a central role in how Brabantia decides where to focus, where to invest
and where to adapt — ensuring that international decisions are guided by the same market
truth, everywhere.
