The ongoing storm – why you need research now – markets
A series of ten views – view 3, the market view
Why you need to research your markets now – the market view
In the last two articles we have highlighted the major shocks that organisations and individuals are continuing to face from the lack of certainty and volatility in the world that we live in now. The transition period following Brexit has ended but COVID continues to have a significant impact on us all.
Many organisations continue to face major challenges due to this.
In our work and personal lives we all need something that we can anchor our plans around.
From a business perspective, we need to understand as best we can what is going on in the marketplaces that we interact with. This has always been the case but in the current climate it is more important than ever that we have this insight to enable us to create a roadmap for the future.
Understanding your markets
After researching the foundations of your organisation – its people and its customers – the next area to explore is your markets.
“Before we do anything from a strategy perspective, it is vital to know where we are now.”
So what are the key things we need to know?
- What is the impact on the market(s) that you are in from the major shocks over the past year?
- How have they changed?
- Have they grown?
- Different dynamics. A shift in the way in which the market(s) work.
- Declined?
- Stayed the same?
- Frozen?
- Disappeared?
- What are the main factors that have caused the changes and why?
- How has your organisation performed against these changes?
Research will usually reveal things that we didn’t know. It is more than possible, therefore, that we may not have been aware of some of the market changes that have happened. Where you have identified changes:
- What have you done to address them?
- What has worked?
- What hasn’t?
- What measures have you used? For example:
- Market share
- Turnover
- Profit or loss
- ROI
- Customer value
- Customer retention
- Likelihood to recommend
- Which are new for the past year?
- What about your competitors?
How are your competitors doing? What are they doing?
Think about the wider competitive environment too. What is changing? How are these changes affecting your organisation?
- We looked at changing customer behaviours and expectations in episode two. How are these affecting your position in your markets?
- Are there new products or services that have appeared in your market(s) over the last 12 months that satisfy needs that you used to?
- Are others (new companies or existing competitors) trying new routes to market(s)?
- Who or what are these?
- Can you compete with them effectively?
- Have there been changes in the supply chain? How do these affect you, if so?
- What is likely to happen next?
What else might be on the horizon to add further shocks to the business environment?
“Scanning and seeking to interpret future changes to the business environment has never been so important.”
It may seem obvious but continual scanning and reporting on the business environment is vital:
- What political changes may happen that will affect your marketplaces? Think about your customers and potential customers here.
- Climate change is a hot issue from an environmental perspective. What might happen that would affect your market(s) in the near to medium future?
- What social changes are happening that may affect you and your customers?
- What technological changes are imminent?
- Which of these are likely to affect the markets that you are in?
- What likely economic changes will affect you and your markets the most?
- What regulatory changes might impact you and your markets? For example, we are by no means out of woods in terms of data transfers from the EEA to the UK yet.
Trying to read the future and planning against some of the likelihoods are key to developing a roadmap that you and your organisation can follow.
- What do you need to consider?
Having researched the above areas, what do the findings mean?
- What do you need to change to create a more sustainable business for the future?
- What opportunities exist for new products and services in markets that you are in now?
- What about opportunities for these products and services in markets that you don’t currently target?
- Are there opportunities for your current offerings in other markets?
- What new market areas could benefit from your organisation’s capabilities – especially your people’s skills and knowledge?
- Should you withdraw from some of your markets?
THE BOTTOM LINE
“Fundamentally…
…are you in the right marketplace(s)?
…are you surfing the waves, stuck in the shore break or sinking?
… how can you pivot your organisation’s capabilities to the meet the opportunities in current and/or new markets?”
If you would like a sounding board for any of this, let’s put a Zoom meeting in the diary
