Product: Decorative Metal Tiles
Years in Business: 14
Number of Employees: 100
Location: Rutland, VT

Questech, in Rutland, Vermont, is a leading manufacturer of decorative tile. The company focuses on superior design, innovation, and craftsmanship. Building on founder Roger Questel's invention of a process to cast metal objects at a fraction of the weight and cost of solid metals, the company launched the industry's first mass-produced metal tiles and remains a leader in that category in the tile and home improvement markets.

In February 2007, Questech participated in a pilot project of the new Eureka! Winning Ways program being offered by VMEC that translates old and new ideas into a portfolio of measurably smarter choices for: 1) More Effective Sales & Marketing Messages, 2) New Customers & Markets and 3) New/Improved Products or Services. During the one day Eureka! Session, Questech created and wrote more than 70 ideas for growth using a disciplined Plan Do Check Act process. Four ideas were tested for probability of success with one coming back as a clear choice. Using the Eureka! Winning Ways Trailblazer process, a plan for researching and testing the idea was developed, and the Questech team immediately went to work. VMEC Growth Coaches met with the Questech team during the discovery process to provide assistance and help the team stay focused on the plan.

Questech was aware that the number one issue customers have with natural stone tile is maintenance. In response to this, Questech developed a unique technology that addresses that concern in an industry-changing way, much in the way that Stainmaster revolutionized the carpet industry.

Within six weeks of their Eureka! Session, Questech launched a test of their new product in a large tile showroom in Albany, New York (two hours from Rutland). In the months since then, the company has continued to gain knowledge and develop a more sophisticated deployment strategy through the variety of challenges and hurdles that they have encountered during the testing phase. Barriers to distribution and freight costs, portability of technology and equipment, training of showroom sales personnel, and merchandising and marketing challenges have all been encountered and overcome on this small scale-level before a large scale product rollout.

Early results from Questech's singlestore test are promising, and could amount to $30,000 in revenue from that location for the year. With a market size of over 650 million square feet of stone tile sold each year, even 10% market penetration of Q-Seal would provide enormous revenue potential.

"Not only could this triple the size of our business," says Gary Marmer, Vice President of Marketing for Questech and Product Manager for Q-Seal, "but it will fundamentally change our industry."

Questech plans to use the "Fail Fast, Fail Cheap" laboratory model created by Eureka! Winning Ways for quick input on other new products and offerings. Getting the products and marketing materials into one retail store provided fast and effective customer feedback and market research in real time allowing them to make quick corrections and product development lead time was reduced by as much as 50%.

The results from Eureka! Winning Ways not only provided Questech with measurably smarter choices for growth, but also helped to redefine the company's vision for growth in the future.