Dr Phil Bretherton is to harness EIT’s pool of talent in leading funded research and consultancy projects for public and private sector organisations in the region.

Based in EIT’s School of Business, Dr Bretherton’s solid career background encompasses senior roles in commercial organisations and academic positions in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

He was Head of School Management for most of his eight years at Unitec, where he completed his PhD investigating how New Zealand wine companies might create a sustainable competitive advantage.

Moving to Australia’s Northern Territory, he was Professor of Organisational Performance and Head of the School of Law and
Business at Charles Darwin University. In Queensland, as Head of Business Research at CQ University, research projects he led
included work for Harvest Company, suppliers of sweet fruit to Woolworths’ supermarkets.

Seeking to launch a fruit salad, the company sought advice on the weight of the product, the fruit and the size of the fruit chunks.
The research team proposed three types of melon cut into medium-sized pieces and advised retailing a 300g pack for $2.95.
“The product initially faltered when it was priced at $3.95. Timepoor women who could afford the price were uncomfortable
about spending what they felt was too much on themselves.”

The Hunter Valley Vineyard Association wanted to know why members’ cellar door sales had been dropping by $A10m a year
and how to address the problem.

Carrying out cellar door interviews, using silent shoppers and conducting a telephone survey, the research team found the
market segmentation had moved from middle to high income women from Sydney and Newcastle buying several cases of
wine while exploring the wine region.

“The new clientele – childless ‘romantics’ aged 25-35 – were taking advantage of cheap flights for short breaks. Rather than
wine, the women drank RTDs and the men beer.”

The research team encouraged wineries to record visitors’ email addresses for promotional material and recommended making
purchasing easier by arranging freight.

Wineries were urged to think of cellar doors as retail spaces rather than showrooms, upgrade their staffs’ selling skills and work
collectively to reduce costs for packaging, bottling and labelling.

To contact Dr Bretherton about a research project, email pbretherton@eit.ac.nz