In my last rant post, I mentioned that a great many organizations don’t have a clear answer for the following:
- A clear understanding of the customers? needs and expectations.
- A unique solution for an unmet need of that audience.
- An operation/process that consistently delivers that solution in a unique, valuable manner.
The reason is, based on my experience, is that understanding the customers’ needs and expectations, developing a unique solution and? then consistently delivering a unique, valuable customer experience requires a great deal of hard work.
And for some organizations, hard work isn’t really part of the culture.? Well, let me explain that – most organizations love to work hard but they don’t know how to work smart.
Hard work pays off when it’s focused on the right things.? However when it’s not focused, you end up with a lot of people doing a lot of things because…
Research: The importance of identifying the unmet needs you will fill, the unmet expectations you will exceed.
What do you know about your target audience -? really?? Let’s go beyond demographics and psychographics.? Who are the large consumers of your products/services?? Why do they consume so much?? Who do they buy from today (the industry leader)?? Why do they buy from that organization?? Do they make all of their purchases from that single organization or do they have 2 or 3 organizations that they turn to for these products/services?? Why do they turn to Organization A more times than B and C?
If you don’t ask these questions on a regular basis and monitor the results in order to identify developing changes in the consumers’ buying habits, you are missing opportunities to improve your business.
If you ask these questions, monitor the results and identify developing trends yet fail to act quickly, efficiently and appropriately, you have other challenges.
Over? my career, I have worked with organizations that either don’t build research into their daily operations or they aren’t able to quickly incorporate that insight into new products and services in order to take advantage of developing trends.? Both situations leave money on the table.
Business intelligence [an alternate term for competitive intelligence] is the activity of monitoring the environment external to the firm for information that is relevant for the decision-making process of the company.
Competitor intelligence is the analytical process that transforms disaggregated competitor intelligence into relevant, accurate and usable strategic knowledge about competitors, position, performance, capabilities and intentions.
The above excerpts come from Chapter 1 of The Competitive Intelligence Handbook.? If your organization doesn’t have a formal process for gathering, analyzing and developing strategic action plans from BI and CI, I strongly suggest you start focusing some resources in these areas – it’s easier than you think.
Step 1: Clearly Articulate What You Want To Learn and Why
Thanks to the Internet, gathering data is too (too, too) easy so you need to be specific in your goals and objectives.? Spend time discussing what you want to know and why – be clear about what you plan to use the data for so you can easily determine if the quality of the data is acceptable.
Identify acceptable sources and specifics.? If you want financial data about a publicly traded firm, you’re going to want to focus on the quarterly and annual reports.? This type of focus will save you time, money and frustration.
And in those scenarios where you are trying to learn about a publicly-traded firm, listen to the broadcasts of the analysts calls.? They offer tremendous insight that sometimes isn’t clearly spelled out in the official reports.
Trying to find out information about a privately-held firm?? Creativity is the key – for example, I like to monitor the corporate website, read press releases, monitor the classified section of the paper and get a feel for how the organization is doing in terms of office space.? The website may include press releases and both will typically discuss new key hires, major accounts/partnerships, and expansion plans. I also love to watch the “Clients” tab of the site change…sometimes with a new client, sometimes with the deletion of what may very well be a former client.
The classified section helps monitor hiring in the lower and middle level positions and I love to read HR’s description of “looking to fill newly created positions in our brand new state-of-the-art warehouse (call center, sales team, etc.).
What’s all this tell you?? If the competition is constantly hiring customer service representatives and phone sales staff, maybe that turnover indicates customer service/experience weaknesses?? Or maybe fast-paced growth which means you are losing market share?
Use CI and BI to Drive Consumer Research
So now you know that the industry leader is hiring a lot of new service and sales personnel…ask your target audience how that is impacting their level of service.? Ask them if it’s impacting billing – are returns taking longer to process so the account is never up-to-date?
Ask what they like about the competitor – and what they would like to see.? Ask what originally attracted them to the competitor – and if that value is still consistently delivered.
It’s not uncommon to ask that last question and hear “We have been doing business with them since before I came on board…I just keep working with them because we always have.”? And that’s an opportunity!!
Turning Opportunities into Profitable Reality
If your research process is designed to gather, analyze and dump rather than provide practical recommendations on how to respond to the opportunities identified by their own work, BLOW UP THE PROCESS.
If your research is telling you “50% of our major accounts would do more business with us if we changed the following practices…” but can’t tell you which specific accounts because the research was set up and executed in a way that protects the respondents identity, BLOW UP THE PROCESS.
You need practical recommendations based upon the analysis of data that has been collected in an acceptable manner from quality sources – anything less is an inefficient use of? resources.
Still Don’t Think Your Organization Needs Research?
So you have made it this far in this post and still don’t believe you need research?? You still believe that your organization’s “gut” is the best barometer for developing new products and services, determining your strategy for pricing, promotion and distribution?
Please tell me why – go ahead and post your comments and please explain why you feel being less informed is better for your business.
Recommended Reading
Want to learn more about how to develop a successful, productive research effort that feeds your strategic planning efforts with practical recommendations?
- Strategic Market Research: A Guide to Conducting Research that Drives Businesses (Paperback)
- How to use Market Research in a Recession
- Market Research at INC. Magazine
