I am always amazed at the cost and relative uselessness, for small to mid-size B2B firms, of formally published market research reports. Certainly, strategic business decisions must not be made in an informational vacuum, but expecting meaningful, actionable information to come from a general market research report, read by dozens, if not hundreds, of competitors, is delusional.
So, where should small to midsize B2B firms look for accurate, current, meaningful and actionable market data to support their strategic breakthroughs?
The Free Source of the Most Valuable Market Research:
Few small-to-midsize B2B businesses avail themselves of the hidden army of market researchers already at their disposal. That army comprises any and all of their employees that have regular interaction with customers or, their customers’ markets. That team includes the sales and marketing team, product designers, quality people, customer service, their suppliers and their procurement people. This army is already there and on your payroll. Take the simple steps to mobilize it.
How to tap that resource?
There are several low-no-cost actions a firm can take to extract gold from that untapped resource.
- Make the expectation for discovering, recording and reporting market intelligence explicit and universal. And reward it!
The most significant growth breakthrough I have personally witnessed was identified by my client’s CFO who discovered, through a casual comment made by his next-door neighbor, an unexpected market for their product that no one had anticipated. A quick investigation revealed that the economic benefits received by the single customer they already had in that market were so significant that simply by refocusing the sales force on other similar customers in that market, the firm’s sales more than doubled.
The great business thinker Peter Drucker suggested that firms should pay particular attention to, what he calls, the unexpected success – no matter how small they may appear on the surface. These unexpected successes can signal huge growth potential.
To get the market intelligence gathering collection process started, some firms simply add a section to their employees monthly or weekly reports, entitled “Market Intelligence”. And it helps to provide public recognition and perhaps a surprise bonus for the most fruitful information provided.
- Train the team on what to look for and how to ferret out key information
What to look for may encompass: bits of competitive intelligence, customer and user data, any information about the growth, health and what’s driving the customer’s markets, and, most importantly, applications and uses for your products that are innovative, provide high customer value and that you hadn’t thought of yourself.
Train and expect your team to develop heightened awareness, keen curiosity, ask lots of questions, and dig deeper into customer motivations, benefits and markets.
At another client, a very small volume, but rapidly growing, part they were supplying to a customer, was discovered to be an early indicator of healthy growth in an emerging strategic market. As in the previous case, a simple partial refocus of the sales team to that sector created multiple years of strong double-digit, very profitable growth.
- Create a standard business process for collecting, analyzing and making decisions based on that information
A small company may have, when all hands are tuned on to market intelligence gathering, a dozen or more people regularly feeding their observations into an analysis and clearing house function. One individual, equipped with a good set of analysis tools, is all it takes to assess that data – and it’s not a full time job. But the rigor and discipline associated with that analysis must be maintained and acted upon for the results to be resalized..
That analysis tool kit must enable the sorting and validation of hidden customer value, target market attractiveness, competitive positioning opportunities and untapped market potential.
The only thing standing between you and reaching out for that gold that is within your reach, is simply the decision to do it.
*****
For more information on how to tap into market data gold laying there in front of you, call Jerry Vieira at 503.318.2696 or email to Jerry@qmpassociates.com