Marketing Toolkit ...cont'd

Introduction   |   Market Analysis Tools  (return to beginning of section)   |  
Client Satisfaction   |   Market Planning   |   Presentation

3.1 Market Analysis Tools ...cont'd

Client Structure Analysis

Now, use Client Structure Analysis (Form M.6S) to display the relative positions of each of your current products or services to each client group. The selection of products or services should be defined by referring back to Present Business Activities (Form M.1 or M.1S). Using a separate form for each client group, place a mark that represents the relative location of each product.

For example, if you provide a service that has high sales for the group presently, but future sales are low, you can assume that you have saturated the market currently, but the market is changing and you should be ready to re-concentrate your sales efforts. Alternatively, future sales may be higher, and your organization might want to invest in selling the product or service to that client group – if the product or service is relatively profitable with respect to your other offerings.

Form M.6s:  (download file-  pdf  |  word/97  |  rtf )

Competitive Analysis – Qualitative

Competitive analysis covers the major strengths, shortcomings, and recognizable strategies of each competitor. If possible, their present situation including total sales, sales by product, market share, product policy, price range, cost structures, profitability, financial strength, and reasons for success and failure should be ascertained.

The Qualitative Competitive Analysis (Form M.7) offers your planning team a straightforward way to profile your competitors. You should use a separate form for each competitor and take a hard look at the competitor’s advantages in the market including its client base, service delivery, technology, processes, and financial resources. Then look at its disadvantages. To the extent possible, define their strategies.

Understanding the competition requires the answers to two basic questions:

• What can the competitor do? An analysis of the competitor’s capabilities requires an assessment of their financial and operating strengths and weaknesses.
• What will the competitor do? Companies, like individuals, have personalities that affect the actions they take. This corporate personality, or culture, can have an impact on all facets of the firm’s activities, from financial policy to pricing tactics. Therefore, the answer to the first and second questions will often differ markedly.

The Competitive Analysis—Summary Form (M.7S), provides a way for you to consolidate what you know about your competitors by product. The planning team should discuss the information that can be distilled from this chart, not only from the point of view of developing strategies to address the competitors’ position in the marketplace, but to also see what lessons can be learned and applied to your own product lines.

Form M.7:  (download file-  pdf  |  word/97  |  rtf )

Form M.7s:  (download file-  pdf  |  word/97  |  rtf )

Organizational Analysis

Main Trends and Effects

In completing Main Trends and Effects (Form M.8) review what information you have documented so far and add what you know about past patterns and what you believe will be future directions. Use your intuition to estimate the negative or positive impact these trends will have upon you and your competitors. Document your thoughts and ideas individually and then consolidate the opinions of your entire planning team.

Use the Main Trends and Effects template below to create Form M.8 and Summary Form M.8S.

Form M.8:    (download file-  pdf  |  word/97  |  rtf ) and
Form M.8s:  (download file-  pdf  |  word/97  |  rtf )

Possible New Business Activities

You have been encouraged, during this market research exercise to think of your offerings to your client in terms of benefits. Now on the basis of the present business activities already documented (Form M.1/1S) answer the following questions and list what new benefits your organization should be offering your current and potential clients on Possible New Business Activities (Form M.9):

• Which possible new or related benefits (functions) could we offer our final consumers through our existing products and/or services?
• What possible new or related groups of final consumers could we provide benefits to?
• With which new technologies or processes and methods could we provide this benefit?

Discuss the new benefits you might offer clients with your planning team and enter summarized results on Possible New Business Activities—Summary (Form M.9S) – created using Form M.9 Template.

Form M.9:    (download file-  pdf  |  word/97  |  rtf )

Product and Service Differentiation

The Product and Service Differentiation worksheet (Form D.1) offers you a structured way to evaluate each of your current products as well as those you may have under consideration. The worksheet is intended to serve two purposes:

• Stimulate thinking about what makes a product stand out from the competition.
• Assist you with competitive ranking across your product and service lines.

Three criteria sub-sets are used:

1. Related to the product/service offered
2. Related to your organization
3. Related to the market in which you operate.

In order to complete the form you must rate each product or service relative to the competition according to the criteria by assigning a numeric value between 0 (no advantage) and 10 (complete advantage). If any of the criteria are of special strategic importance, increase its weighted value.

The product/service can be compared to others by criteria sub-set or in total. Higher scores imply greater competitive advantage through differentiation. If the same criteria and weighted values are applied consistently, results should be comparable across products and services.

FormD.1:    (download file-  pdf  |  word/97  |  rtf )

Copyright © 1999 Carnegie Mellon University, Charles P. Sitkin.