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Archive for the ‘Industrial Research’ Category« Previous EntriesGetting Buy-In To Your Research ProjectTuesday, July 3rd, 2012  More and more clients are coming to us at an early stage in the creation of a research brief to get our thoughts not only on how we can help research the problem but also to get our help and backing to get buy-in to the project from inside and help fight the internal bureaucracy. If you try and battle the red tape you will get nowhere. Instead, follow these 4 simple rules to get your research project off the ground and you will stand a greater chance of business success: • Go against the path of least resistance. Find out who is bought in to your way of thinking and then get them onside. • Use the resources that are close to hand. Don’t go to many lengths to get a large budget straight away. Instead, use people you know, desk research and other resources/budget that you have to help you get the wheels in motion and any evidence you may need to move to the next level. • Secure only the commitment you need for the short term. Don’t try to get the board’s buy-in from the get-go. Instead make sure that everyone is clear to what you are trying to achieve and then get the least amount of commitment you need to take your project to the next stage. • Move quickly. Most good ideas stall because they don’t have the necessary momentum. Put your all behind the project or it will die and atrophy. To find out how B2B International can help your organisation, contact one of our international offices http://www.b2binternational.com/contact-b2b/ or find out about what is important when putting a research brief together http://www.b2binternational.com/publications/articles/market-research-brief/ Who is the next China?Monday, May 14th, 2012  China is a phenomenally important player in the world’s economy. The country does, of course, have a reputation as home to much of the world’s low-cost manufacturing, but this is not such an accurate reflection of its economic standing today; increasingly China is moving up the pecking order and shedding its reputation as the world’s workshop. All of which does perhaps beg the question, where will low-value manufacturing go next? Indonesia is one country creating a lot of interest in this regard. With a significant population, growing middle class and relatively stable government, it certainly ticks some of the required boxes, but some concerns persist, such as onerous labour regulations and weak infrastructure. Indeed, one trend that has been noted is for certain countries to carve out certain niches. Bangladesh and Cambodia, for example, are very much establishing themselves in the textile industry. Elsewhere, Vietnam is tipped by some to be the next stop for global supply chains, but others feel it is not living up to its potential for a number of reasons, among them a poor transportation infrastructure, political instability and high inflation. Meanwhile, manufacturing industries in countries such as Thailand and Malaysia, both of which produce a bigger share of sophisticated goods than China (particularly electronics and car parts) could actually find themselves threatened by Chinese manufacturers moving up the value chain – and therefore into their turf. With complex supply chains predicted to continue to fragment across multiple countries, specific industries are expected to gravitate towards countries with comparative advantages in that area. In summary, there is no one clear successor to China, but all Southeast Asian countries together might just stand a chance. — This blog is based on an article first appearing in China Economic Review. To read the article in full, please click here or to learn more about the potential of the Asia Pacific region for your business, visit our website. Positive Outlook for Industrial CompaniesWednesday, July 21st, 2010  Good news this month for many of our clients! According to a new report, Trends in Industrial Marketing 2010: How Manufacturers are Marketing Today – incidentally published by one of our clients, GlobalSpec – 70% of sales and marketing professionals in the industrial sector expect their companies to increase sales this year, compared with a mere 16% in 2009. However, the online survey of 464 respondents found that only 31% had an increased marketing budget. For 42% of sales and marketing professionals questioned, customer acquisition is their primary goal this year. One-third is focusing on lead generation and 13% specified branding as their main aim. More than two-thirds (68%) plan to increase spending on social media. The same percentage intends to increase their spend on online video this year. Conversely, a quarter plans to decrease spend on trade magazine advertising and 24% will decrease use of printed directories. A Recessionary Review of Market Research in the USAWednesday, May 12th, 2010  Hot on the heels of the successful opening of its Beijing office in 2006, B2B International took the decision to expand its operations into a further new continent – North America – and its New York office opened in early summer 2008. Not three months later and we had the meltdown on Wall Street, triggering one of the deepest and harshest global recessions in living memory. One question it might be appropriate to ask in these circumstances is whether we would have done things differently, had we known what was just around the corner? While I’m sure we would have thought long and hard before making the decision, in truth we probably would have gone ahead as planned. Why is that? It’s because, as many of you will already know, the market research industry has consistently proven itself to be fairly resilient in times of adversity. Perhaps saying market research is “recession-proof” would be going a bit far, but the industry is certainly able to withstand a degree of external pressure. Conducting market research is, of course, a means of reducing risk in business decision making, and when do companies most need to play it safe? When times are tough. When things are going swimmingly, you can perhaps afford to take the odd chance and risk making the occasional mistake. When the economy is in freefall, there can be no margin for error. We have to acknowledge that 2009 was a challenging year for many. Budgets in most industries were cut and – while we can argue all day about the logic behind it – market research spend, like expenditure in many other business areas, was reined in for some. Similarly, a number of our clients were forced to delay projects due to the economic uncertainty. Yet, overall, levels of enquiries and commissions have not altered significantly over the past 18 months. What we did, however, notice during the height of the recession was a change in the type of research we were being asked to conduct. The more ‘aggressive’ market entry and market assessment studies commissioned by companies looking to expand into new markets and find new customers were replaced by more ‘defensive’ projects such as customer satisfaction. It has clearly been more important than ever to protect what business you do have and look after your existing customers to ensure they don’t defect. In recent weeks and months, as increasingly we see optimism re-emerge in North America – as indeed globally – clients are gradually feeling emboldened. As their business strategies become more ‘adventurous’, so too are the types of research they require. Perhaps a little surprising to us in America has been the high number of clients commissioning product development studies during the recession. However, most of these have not been of the all-out ambitious new product development variety; rather, they have tended to focus more around improvements to existing products or extensions to an existing product range. While we cannot determine precisely the reason for this trend, we believe it has been a measured response to a real or perceived increased threat by competitors’ products and/or decreased market share. Product improvements are a means of establishing differentiation at the same time as demonstrating innovativeness and reinforcing a commitment to better serving clients’ needs. At a time when the economic environment is forcing many competitors to lie low, product development has the added advantage of giving you something to shout about. The intensifying of the recession also appeared to curb the movement we had been witnessing towards environmentally-friendly products and services. Many of the first market research projects we conducted upon arriving in the United States in 2008 assessed the potential for introducing ‘green’ extensions to existing product lines or launching an already-successful North American energy-saving product in other global markets. This type of project request became noticeably less common throughout 2009 but early indications in 2010 – across all our offices, not just in the U.S., it must be noted – lead us to believe that environmental issues will once again rise to the fore. A more general observation that can be made about the U.S.A. has been the optimism throughout the hard times. Perhaps being a pessimist Brit and used to constant negative media coverage about the doom and gloom we’re all facing, being in America has, at times, been like a breath of fresh air. In spite of rocketing rates of unemployment (up from 6% in September 2008 to 9.7% at the time of writing), record mortgage foreclosures, horrendous stock-market declines and trillion-dollar Government bailout packages, what has been noticeable has been the positive messages portrayed in the media. People haven’t denied the economic problems but have been very much of the opinion that “things will get better”, “together we’ll pull through” and “America will rule the world once more.” And there I was thinking the British were supposed to be full of Dunkirk spirit! In part, I think the presidential election of November 2008, which coincided with the start of tough times, generated a lot of positivity. President Barack Obama’s “Change we can believe in” slogan was a beacon for many. His election was seen as a chance for America to change for the better. Eighteen months on and the general public may not be quite so enamoured with what’s being achieved on the political agenda, but negativity has not taken over. Indeed, as we begin to see signs of improvements here on this side of the Atlantic, we are thankful that things have not been worse. I will conclude by referring to an observation made to me earlier this week by a British colleague, also based here in New York: “Americans are more confident, more willing to take a risk and therefore more likely to succeed”. That, in a nutshell, sums things up nicely. Social Responsibility: Benefiting One And AllTuesday, September 2nd, 2008
Back in February 2008, B2B International Director Nick Hague contributed an article – Differentiation Through Being Green – to our Thursday Night Insight series. In it, he discussed how business-to-business companies may be able to set themselves apart from the competition by enhancing their green credentials and by being seen to care more for the environment. However, Nick warned that this approach should not be adopted for purely financially-motivated reasons; being environmentally-friendly and promoting sustainability have become hugely important issues in this day and age, and they should not be taken lightly. In a similar vein, the following article – taken from the August 2008 MediaBrains newsletter – looks at how the b-to-b sector can benefit from greater social responsibility as a whole – as long as it’s done in the right way, for the right reasons:
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