Evaluate the potential of a new market ? Case Study | The Business ...

This case study demonstrates the power of what I call ?down and dirty? exploratory telephone research really well?

Background
One of my (Linda Mattacks) clients was a company that supplied enterprise-wide business systems solutions to a diverse range of companies around the globe. Its solutions had been adopted by companies in the construction industry in the USA and Europe, but never in the UK.

An independent salesman had presented the client with a UK construction industry database and claimed he could sell to it. The client wasn?t convinced and, before committing to an expensive three-month trial period of sales and marketing activity, wanted me to research ?100m+ turnover construction companies in the UK.

With the salesman?s full cooperation, this client provided 50% of his database, from which I would need to select the target audience for the research project. The salesman was meanwhile using the other half of his database to make prospecting calls and even gave me his tip on how to approach the companies: This was to wait until the Secretary/PA was likely to have left the office for the day and attempt to make direct contact with the Chief Executive Officer. I did wonder whether he was seriously trying to be helpful or deliberately setting me off on a false trail. Anyway, it didn?t ?sit right? with me so I decided fairly immediately to file the tip rather than follow it.

Data sanity check
Knowing close to zero about the UK construction industry the first thing I did was obtain a count from a couple of business list providers to double check the size of the universe.

This showed there to be around 80 construction companies in the UK with a turnover of ?100m+ rather than the 250 on the full database supplied by the salesman. Closer inspection of ?my? half of this database revealed that he had parent companies and lots of subsidiaries that each showed as separate companies.

Let?s continue the examination of this case. There are several reasons I?ve labelled this project ?down and dirty? and none of them are anything to do with it being wrong or underhand:

1 Research briefing
The attitude of the individual who commissioned the research was very much ?You just get on with it and find out if there?s a market for us? and, even when I could get hold of him, he wouldn?t sit down to give a proper briefing. Oh, terrific, I don?t think!

2 The research objectives
So I figured out that there were three main objectives we needed to achieve:

• Identify principal drivers and constraints upon the use of integrated business systems in the UK construction industry
• Establish the opportunity for our client to feature in the re-engineering of business systems within UK construction companies
• Ascertain what would make choosing our client a viable solution

3 Time restrictions
This client was a man who did not want to hang around. The research had to be planned, executed and results presented within four weeks. There was no time for:

• The usual desk research of the industry (the Internet was still in its infancy and information was nowhere near as widely, easily and swiftly available as it is today)
• Preparation, design and testing of a research questionnaire call guide
• Putting together, briefing and training a team of telephone researchers

4 Practical considerations

There was the small matter that:

• Re-engineering a ?100m+ company?s business systems requires major investment and has enormous potential impact on the business, which meant that interviews would have to be held at director level in order for the findings to have any meaning and authority
• Getting telephone interviews with Board level directors of ?100m+ turnover companies at short notice is not easy

5 Resultant implications
This was a project that was fraught with potential pitfalls and could easily have failed to achieve sufficient useful information within the allotted time.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because it leads on to a:

Big Tip

• The chances of ever having ideal circumstances and conditions to carry out any kind of exploratory telephone research are virtually negligible
  • Go with what you have
  • Check out what ?facts? you can before you start
  • Then get on with it ? you are not going to publish the results as a business paper ? you?re going to use them to ascertain and evaluate market opportunities
  • If you wait for the ideal moment to present itself it will never happen

Back to this research project?

The project became focused on identifying and interviewing key figures in leading construction companies which, in turn, led to additional information gathering from other influencers in the industry (consultants, associations and an IT/construction industry think tank that I uncovered along the way) to round out the picture.

Research results
It was a fascinating, extremely focused, four weeks and I ended up becoming something of a mini expert on the industry and on the differences between the workings of the sectors within the industry. I ultimately conducted twenty depth telephone interviews with a mixture of Decision Makers and Influencers. The outcome provided us with a sound understanding of the state of the construction industry at the time and these were the top level findings:

• There was a readiness amongst the major players, those with ?400m+ turnover, to re-engineer their business systems ? the rest would watch and wait and probably follow suit
• The research also unearthed differences in attitude to re-engineering business systems in different sectors of the industry
• It highlighted misconceptions about the client?s solution and a need for the client to demonstrate understanding of and involvement with the construction industry
• It confirmed that any possibility for change only existed where there was a Board Director ?champion? ? if the interest emanated from IT Director level it was doomed to failure
• The Board Director?s views prevailed even where there was resistance from the IT Director
• It brought requests from Board Directors of two major ?400m+ turnover companies for an exploratory meeting with the client

As a result the client was able to weigh the pros and cons of what cost and effort would be required to successfully actively target the industry, and the likely monetary returns, based on facts rather than assumptions.

The value of the results of this research project being delivered to the client within his specified time frame, (together with the unexpected bonus of high level introductions to two potential clients) was such that he readily and promptly paid the project fee of ?12,000.

All this type of research will cost your company is someone?s time, the application of intelligent thought and a small addition to the company?s phone bill!

Set aside some thinking time

• If you can involve other members of your team, so much the better
• Brainstorm ideas for free-form telephone research

Taken from training material originally developed and delivered by Linda Mattacks

Source: http://tonystitt.co.uk/business-development/the-telephone/evaluate-the-potential-of-a-new-market-case-study

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