Characterizing and understanding a "market environment" is the very first step in knowing how to speak effectively to that market... how to deliver tremendous new value to it. This is where blue ocean strategies have their beginnings, as it is from these insights that ground–breaking new approaches can be defined that change the game for how value and experiences are delivered into the market. This is the birthplace of "what" innovation, and the locus of well–conceived innovation strategies.
This is also where the really hard work gets done that will ultimately set the course for the development projects you end up pursuing. It is the first step in knowing specifically what products and services need to be offered, and how those products and services should deliver value in terms of technologies and attributes that – together with effective marketing – align to solve a particular problem and create a particular brand experience in the market.
The nature of this work is research and analysis. Since it is generally not tied to any one development project, but instead provides overarching insights for a number of projects that are to follow, it can be thought of as a macro exercise.
When initiating this work, we begin with a Market Characterization Plan – our plan of attack for characterizing a particular market of interest. We work with the client to tailor this plan to achieve specific objectives. In an ideal situation, market characterization will be an ongoing activity that is constantly monitoring the trends of both established and emerging markets, making its freshest insights and learnings available for use whenever needed. Otherwise, it is tailored to a specific period of learning.
We carry out this part of the Emergent NPD Process under the auspices of our Discovery Practice. For more information on how this work is done, refer to our Insights Research page.
There are three primary areas of research involved in characterizing a market environment.
These are 1) megatrends research, 2) market–specific trends & economics research, and 3) competitive environment research.
In support of developing effective market and brand strategies for all of our clients, we regularly undertake trends research to understand current and developing trends in culture, technology, business, politics, and other areas that can influence a business' strategy. These important megatrends inform the more focused strategy work we undertake on behalf of clients.
From this very broad and general trends research, we can provide our clients at any given time with a high–level Trends Brief informing them of prescient trends that may affect their business.
However if the desire is to make strategic–level decisions around particular megatrends, this generally requires us to dive much deeper into the numerous lower–level details of these trends. For this, we offer custom research services tailored to the clients' specific needs and objectives. The product of this work is a focused Strategic Trends Brief.
In further support of developing effective market and brand strategies, we undertake detailed analyses of particular markets of interest, each with its own unique trends and economic factors. We also cross–reference current megatrends to predict where those will exert upward or downward influence on these markets within the foreseeable future. Based on where the various trends are moving, we will advise you on how your current offering, brand, market, and innovation strategies may need to evolve to speak effectively to emerging trends in these markets.
In support of developing effective brand and offering strategies, we conduct detailed studies of clients' competitors, their brands, and their offerings, including how those competitors' apparent market, brand, and offering strategies influence their current and pending (publicly known) offering portfolios, down to the types of features, performance attributes, and underlying technologies being offered. We can advise you on how your offering and technology portfolios compare, and how this may or may not impact your future brand and offering strategies.
We can also advise you on what may be known about a particular competitor's innovation program. This can have important implications for how they may potentially leapfrog within a market somewhere down the line.
There are many situations where new insights around what is missing or wrong with a market can be discovered by asking a large number of people familiar with that market. Sometimes these are people within your own organization, and at other times these are people outside but closest to you, such as customers, partners, and suppliers. Sometimes it is even the general public. Collecting inputs from these groups can – and has in many cases – yielded valuable new insights that lead to breakthrough new offerings that resolve previously unknown user tensions.
Where desired, we have the capability to conduct "crowdsourcing" campaigns for our clients. These campaigns can be particularly effective for corporate venturing work, or where you are contemplating launching a new business, joint venture, business unit, brand, or product platform, or where you just have a particularly difficult market challenge you wish to tackle.
Our crowdsourced campaigns can be limited to your internal staff, or can be expanded to include outside parties. We facilitate the process from front to back, including structuring the campaign, designing the questions, setting up and rolling out the web–based participant interface, managing the back–end input collection, aggregating and clarifying the inputs, and presenting the findings. We handle the heavy lifting so that you can stay focused on moving your initiatives forward.
CEOs come and CEOs go. Some are excellent. They generally ‘get it’. Others not so much. They really ‘don't get it’. What makes the difference between these?
READ MORE
There's an insidious debate that's bounced around for probably the better part of twenty years now. It's the debate of whether or not ‘innovation is everyone's job’...
READ MORE
Innovation Spaces – which can refer to any space intentionally designed to foster and facilitate good innovation work – come in all sorts, shapes, and sizes...
READ MOREWe partner with committed business leaders to make their organizations the driving forces in their markets.
CONTACT USSign up for our newsletter.
NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP