New Zealand natural skincare company Trilogy was founded in 2002 by sisters Sarah Gibbs and Catherine de Groot. In just a few years the sisters have built their business from a boutique local operation into a recognised and admired international brand sold in 16 markets worldwide.
Trilogy has appeared on the Deloitte/Unlimited Fast 50 Index for three consecutive years; first appearing as New Zealand’s third fastest growing business in 2006 with a staggering 690 percent growth.
The idea for Trilogy came about when Sarah was manufacturing ingredients for the natural cosmetics and supplement industries. Sarah discovered the oil extracted from rosehip seeds was rich in skin-loving nutrients and had been used for centuries to heal and rejuvenate skin. Having developed a new way to extract the purest elements from rosehip oil the sisters knew they had found a future cosmetic star.
Catherine and Sarah were aware of the growing international trend towards natural and organic choices in everyday consumer products and spotted an emerging market for a range of high performance and sustainable skincare products using natural ingredients.
Trilogy is recognised as one of the pioneers of the natural and organic skincare category and has offices in Wellington, Melbourne, and London. The company is committed to producing high performance products, has a sustainable business philosophy, and its award-winning products have been celebrated in the world’s most prestigious beauty magazines and journals around the world, including Elle, Marie Claire, Tatler, Vogue, Women’s Wear Daily, and the Green Beauty Bible.
The company’s original range of five face care products has now expanded to over 40 face, body and hair care products that are sold in over 3500 stores and retail channels throughout Australasia, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, as well as Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Europe, Scandinavia, and the United States.
Increasingly customers are looking to support companies that demonstrate responsible business practices both ethically and environmentally.
Maximum effect on your skin, minimum effect on our environment.
(Trilogy philosophy)
From the outset Sarah and Catherine set out to create skincare products that not only perform better, but are better ethically, aesthetically, and environmentally.
As Trilogy has grown it has remained committed to a journey towards responsible business practices. Catherine, Sarah and all Trilogy staff focus on this whenever they are designing a new product or revising an old one, creating packaging or working on
how to get products across to the other side of the world.
Operating in a sustainable manner involves businesses working through long and complex processes. While Trilogy has attained carbon neutral status for their corporate operations they are still working hard to develop this status for their products as well. Such a process has to begin way back at the design and packaging stage and can be a huge challenge, even for businesses as committed to sustainable business practices as Trilogy.
Sarah and Catherine want their customers to make ethical purchasing decisions so they are continually pushing the boundaries to improve Trilogy’s ability to do this. A recent example of this is the introduction and use of new recyclable cardboard pallets in their manufacturing and freight-forwarding processes.
From the outset, Trilogy’s strategy was to take Trilogy to the world.
Should an inquiry come from an international market, Sarah and Catherine wanted to make sure their products conformed to European and US standards from day one. Conforming to EU directives ensures a company has global compliance straight away. An example of EU compliance requirements includes listing all ingredients thoroughly in order of their inclusion from biggest to smallest quantities. This is not necessarily the case with all markets with variations applying from one to another.
As opportunities to expand beyond New Zealand came their way, Sarah and Catherine would follow them up. Early on they felt there was potential in Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland. They undertook their own research and engaged with a client manager from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) to develop a deeper knowledge of the markets they were exploring. NZTE were also able to meet with them in these markets and broker relationships with potential partners and others who would assist them in the process.
This exposure in turn has generated interest and led to many enquiries from outlets interested in becoming stockists of the Trilogy range. Trilogy has set up a dedicated section of their website specifically to capture trade enquiries. An important factor in Trilogy’s success internationally can be attributed to the distribution outlets they have partnered with. The more distribution outlets there are, the better the market coverage of the product. In Australia the Myer department store chain has 62 outlets and the Priceline Pharmacy chain 350 stores, which offer the brand huge market coverage. In the United Kingdom, partnering with large chains such as Boots and John Lewis and, in Ireland, partnering with Unicare pharmacy, have enabled Trilogy to develop a significant brand presence in these markets also.
Trilogy’s experience has taught them that the importance of identifying suitable channels to market is a crucial factor in the potential long-term success of new markets. Some markets have been particularly challenging in this respect. Countries such as Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong, for example, tend to offer very limited channels suitable for a niche brand such as Trilogy to become established. Japan, Korea, and Malaysia, on the other hand, offer more advanced choices around niche and natural products so could be models, offering an accessible solution into the Asian market in the future.
Understanding the cultural norms of doing business in a new market can’t be underestimated. The success of Trilogy’s expansion into Ireland can partly be attributed to the fact that the Irish do business in a very similar way to New Zealanders. This made relationship building and mutual understanding very straightforward.
However, negotiating through the cultural barriers of countries less similar to your own can be a challenge, said Sarah, so opportunities to talk to other exporters and share their ideas and experiences is really valuable. Trilogy also found the wealth of written information available from NZTE on the topic was helpful in further developing an understanding of this. Part of Trilogy’s success in Australia came from thinking of them as a separate market and using a very specific marketing strategy that worked for Australians.
Sarah and Catherine place a high value on the creation of good ideas and recognise that it isn’t easy for people to innovate when they are juggling their busy schedules. To ensure it is not forgotten, Trilogy’s staff are asked to take one hour a week away from their work environment and step in to a quiet place to sit and do some blue sky thinking.
These ideas are captured in their "Ideas Log" and shared at different times throughout the development cycle of new or existing products.
"It’s about creating an environment where you can encourage lots of good ideas," Sarah says.
As a part of this philosophy, they ensure that all their staff attend planning sessions, and not just those directly involved in the strategy. This approach ensures that everyone’s good ideas are captured and valued.
Looking around at the great ideas other businesses have is also a good way to keep innovating. Trilogy tends not to focus on other skincare brands, preferring instead to look at what’s happening in businesses very different from their own such as clothing or supermarkets.
Trilogy’s competitive edge is the result of the company’s unique formulations, their positioning in the market place, and the way they market their products.
Trilogy is the only natural brand in the world with Rosehip oil as the main functional ingredient. Rosehip oil is a powerful, clinically proven, natural skin healer.
Trilogy source their Certified Organic Rosehip Oil from Chile.
Trilogy stands apart from the synthetic majority of skincare products as they produce high performance, natural skincare products that offer the consumer a simple, sustainable and effective solution for modern living. Trilogy also stands apart from other natural skincare brands as all its products are high performance, hence their key message: "natural skincare that works".
Although Trilogy is a strictly natural range the look and feel of the brand is mainstream. Trilogy market their range to the mainstream consumer using sophisticated packaging, merchandising material, and marketing techniques that compete directly with traditional cosmetic house brands.
Trilogy also treat everyone as their customer and this includes suppliers, retailers, and retail staff, as well as the end customer. Trilogy also invest in ways of generating word of mouth to promote their products that are outside mainstream marketing methods.
As a company focused on branding, marketing, and formulating, Trilogy’s business is developed around a model of outsourcing. Therefore, collaboration with a variety of different businesses is crucial. Maintaining good relationships with those in the supply chain is essential to sustaining mutually successful business partnerships.
The supply chain works on a range of different levels and Trilogy has no doubt that it is absolutely imperative the suppliers are treated with huge respect.
"You need to enjoy each other and pick partners you like and get on with", Sarah says.
She says it’s more of an intuitive thing. In the early days they made some mistakes on the distribution side of the business and learnt from that.
Much of the product development research is carried out internally within Trilogy; however, aspects of this are also done in collaboration with their laboratory partners in Auckland. This is where chemists develop the physical formulation of the products and undertake quality assurance.
Trilogy then works with a design company to develop the look and feel of the product, and with a packaging company to develop environmentally friendly ways to package the products in keeping with their brand philosophy.
Warehousing, freight forwarding, and distribution are all services contracted by Trilogy and overseen by supply chain and distribution managers working in-house. Their roles are to control processes related to these functions and conduct formal quarterly reviews to ensure quality control is maintained to the highest possible level.
When starting out, Sarah and Catherine had clear areas of responsibility. Sarah used her business skills to concentrate on developing the business model and establishing channels to market, while Catherine used her beauty editor and design experience to drive product development and branding.
As the company has grown, Sarah and Catherine have established distinct operational and strategic goals and set up a staffing structure that reflects this. The operational and strategic decision-making processes at Trilogy are allocated to different staff; however, operational staff are kept informed early in the strategic decision-making process to avoid logistical "surprises" down the track, which can be time consuming and costly.
While there is a limit to what a small company can do about the big issues related to worldwide economic factors, Trilogy has ensured they remain competitive despite the external influences associated with their business. As part of this process, they have put a high priority on getting advice around the development of a robust foreign exchange policy to ensure the company minimizes their exposure to this in the marketplace.
Buying market data is also useful as it gives Trilogy access to finding out how much product their retail partners are selling. Trilogy then use this information to negotiate additional shelf space in store.
While Sarah and Catherine acknowledge that competition in the beauty business is tough, they know that this is a fact of life for the industry. What they do is reflect on the kinds of partnerships they currently have and build on these to ensure they are robust and positive into the future. This is particularly important at the retail level, where a great deal of emphasis is placed on training to ensure the Trilogy brand philosophy is cultivated authentically.
Australia is currently Trilogy’s biggest international market.
However in terms of percentage growth, it’s Ireland that has really taken off with around 640 percent growth in 2010. The Irish are big users of skincare and they like talking about it.
"As a market it’s so similar to New Zealand. We just get each other," says Sarah.
Looking ahead the company’s short term plans include further work to establish their partnerships in the UK and Ireland, where there is a clear indication that the Trilogy brand is staking a claim to fame. Identifying potential partnerships and laying the groundwork for expansion are also currently taking place in Canada.
"It’s all about persistence," says Sarah, "because while we have fabulous products and a fabulous brand, so do others. You really have to have persistence coupled with patience. Just keep going."
Trilogy’s medium term plans focus on establishing a branch within Asia. At this stage it is likely to be in Japan, where several other New Zealand businesses with a related focus are already successfully established.
Published on: 09 Apr 2015
