Archive for the ‘Market Assesment’ Category
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
B2B International’s latest office is about to open in New York, USA. At a time when all talk in the media is of a stuttering US – and indeed worldwide – economy, why are we heading Stateside now?
After a decade spent consolidating our position as one of the UK and Europe’s leading business-to-business market research agencies, B2B International opened its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Beijing in 2006. In the run-up to establishing B2B International China, the demand from clients wishing to find out more about Asia-Pacific markets – in particular China – had been unprecedented.
Yet, whilst this dramatic appetite for research in the East was occurring, interest in Western markets – both European and American – continued to be of huge importance to B2B International. Notably, both the market research we conduct into North America and that carried out on behalf of our US clients, remain consistently strong.
Given the current lack of confidence in the US economy, many US corporates are interested in finding new markets outside of the United States. With the dollar currently at a low and relatively weak domestic demand, there is an incentive for businesses to look overseas and to commission market researchers to evaluate opportunities for them. Since B2B International specialises in international business-to-business market research, we are in a very strong position to work for companies interested in research of this kind.
US market research buyers – like those in the rest of the world – are showing an increasing interest in commissioning research on Asia, in particular research on market assessment studies and potential opportunities. Indeed, we have seen a 35% increase in the number of US clients commissioning this type of project over the last 6 months alone. The bi-lingual team in the B2B International China office is ideally placed to meet the needs of American corporations wishing to find out more about Asia.
There remains great interest in conducting research across Europe. Given the idiosyncrasies of European countries in terms of their cultural trends, industry strengths and weaknesses, and market research offerings and opportunities, it is vital to entrust your market research to somebody who understands these differences. With native speakers of every European language based at our UK head office, B2B International fits the bill perfectly.
Tomorrow’s blog post takes a more in-depth look at what B2B International can offer American clients.
Posted in
Market Research USA, Market Research China, Market Assesment |
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Friday, April 18th, 2008
In her first Thursday Night Insight post, Marketing Manager Caroline Harrison reflects on how cultural differences hold the key to the success or failure of products or services across the globe.
After years of study and years of employment in the fields of marketing and market research, I would like to think that by now I understand the value of market research. After all, day-in day-out, I see clients discover things about their business, or their clients, or the markets in which they operate, which they had never known before; sometimes they already had an inkling and, naturally, sometimes market research proves that they were right all along. But equally often, the research we conduct for them throws up surprises.
Around this time last year I was struck by a bolt of lightening (metaphorically speaking, of course). In a flash I saw the true consequences of not carrying out market research before entering a new market.
I was living in Beijing at the time, working in the B2B International China office. Many things strike you as different in China, but I was fascinated to find that the whiter your skin, the more beautiful a woman is considered to be over there (dark skin is apparently associated with peasants who have to toil in the fields all day). This was great news for me since finally there was no pressure to frazzle myself on a sunbed or waste hours applying fake tan.
Not that I could fake it had I wanted to, and that’s my point in all this. Because here’s the thing; beauty products in China all contain whitening agents rather than the bronzing agents so many equivalent products in the UK contain nowadays.
Although I found this to be an interesting observation, more than that I couldn’t help but think how crucial local knowledge and cultural understanding are when looking to enter a new market.
Imagine some executive of a beauty products company sitting in his or her cosy office back in the UK. With the nation’s top-selling moisturiser (featuring tanning agent for that natural sunkissed glow, of course!) reaching saturation point in the local market, it looks like it’s time to launch the product abroad… So where would be good? What about China? After all, with 200 million 15-34 year old women at your disposal, just imagine the clamour for this hugely popular product… And just imagine the profits that would come rolling in…!
Of course, I now know that the reality would be somewhat different. Without investigating the market in advance, this ambitious executive would have one of the costliest and most momentous product launch failures of all time on his or her hands.
Posted in
Caroline Harrison, Thursday Night Insight, Market Research China, Market Assesment |
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Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
Last week’s episode of The Apprentice saw the two teams challenged to set up and run their own laundry business for 24 hours. Both teams had to go out and tout for business, wash and press the laundry to a high standard, and return all the correct items to their owners within the specified time limit. As usual, there were all sorts of mistakes made along the way which would serve as a warning to anyone in the world of business. But from a market research point of view, what was the lesson we can take from this week’s exercise?
Without any previous experience in the laundry trade, one of the keys to winning business in this task was getting the pricing structure right. The boys’ team wisely did their research straight away, ringing round several competitors to get a feel for the industry’s charging structure, and reaping the benefits immediately by winning a big hotel contract. Whilst the manager of the hotel in question had been expecting a quote in the region of £200, the girls’ team left him speechless by pricing its services at £5,000! This followed a conversation between the girls during which they all admitted that they had no idea what to charge, and so proceeded to pluck a figure of £4.99 per item out of the air. Why no-one showed even the slightest initiative in suggesting the need to research what pricing structure should be chosen, is beyond the comprehension of most people.
You might have hoped that, upon learning how staggeringly expensive their quote had been, the girls’ team would decide to do some pricing research, yet they carried on regardless. At their next appointment, they offered to wash a huge amount of filthy industrial workwear at the bargain basement price of £15. Even the customer could hardly contain his disbelief and amusement at the ridiculously low price. Needless to say, the boys’ team strolled to victory in this task.
Week One’s episode also demonstrated a lack of nous when it came to product pricing. In setting up competing fish stalls in a market, the girls’ team started to make losses from the word go. Before they had even had time to price up their stock, they were approached by customers wishing to purchase their wares. Desperate to get the ball rolling and some sales under their belts, some team members just asked the customers what they would be willing to pay for their produce. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that these early customers probably landed themselves some unbelievable bargains! The boys’ team, meanwhile, in its rush to get set up, mistakenly began selling lobster at £4.90 each (instead of a more realistic price of £4.90 per kilo). In their defence, it didn’t take the boys too long to head off to check out the prices offered by their competitors and to correct their mistake, but to some extent the damage was already done.
Pricing is never easy to get right, but the very last thing you should do is guess. Pricing research is vital in establishing what the market can bear, what pricing strategies your competitors have adopted and why, what quality perceptions a particular pricing structure will give, etc.
You can learn more about pricing in our B2B International white paper, The Problem With Price and in the article Research As An Aid To Optimum Pricing.
Posted in
Quantitative Research, Pricing Strategy, Market Assesment |
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Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
A Manchester-based recruitment agency is challenging the more established London companies
The recruitment industry in the UK has borne witness to exceptional growth in recent years. In the last decade the industry has grown from a value of less than £10billion to just under £25billion. With the rapid growth in the industry have come many new methods and systems of recruitment; methods such as "talent mapping" allow blue chip companies to proactively solve their recruitment crises before they happen.
The vast majority of the recruitment business is located in London. However, Warren Partners is an independent executive search consultancy that has broken the mould, being based in the North West. In the seven years since its inception, Warren Partners has grown to be one of the most successful executive search companies in the North West with a turnover of over £3million.
Warren Partners recently commissioned specialist business-to-business research agency B2B International to undertake research to see how they were positioned against the London-based executive search companies.
Findings indicate that competition is rife. B2B International found that 90% of companies looking to fill an executive vacancy use more than one executive search company and the majority use more than three. London executive search companies are definitely more front-of-mind for the higher valued job positions of £100k+.
However, with the ever-changing business environment and the heightened use of e-mail and telephone, location is not an important driver when choosing an executive search company. This is evident in how the market views Warren Partners competing on an equal footing with the likes of Heidrick & Struggles, Whitehead Mann, Spencer Stuart and Odgers Ray & Berndtson.
When looking to fill executive vacancies, there are three key factors that companies look to fulfil:
- ease of doing business with the company
- specialisation in an industry sector
- company values and what the company stands for
Warren Partners excel in every one of these categories with 4 out of 10 customers stating that they are better than the competition. Words that customers use to depict Warren Partners’ key strengths include expertise, values/culture, communication, relationships, honesty, reputation and network of contacts.
The research concluded that no one company has taken the high ground in people’s minds as the executive search company to use. Over and above that, HR Managers and Directors are looking for something different from what is currently being provided; a fifth of companies felt that there were product or service gaps that are not being offered by the market.
B2B director Nick Hague, in charge of the research, says:
Warren Partners are now working on a wider service portfolio as well as a focused communication strategy to build brand presence and more closely meet the needs of companies in the marketplace.
Posted in
Nick Hague, Market Assesment, Customer Satisfaction, Branding |
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Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
As market researchers, a large part of our work involves scoping the economic conditions of nations for our clients. This is often done to investigate the market entry opportunities that might exist in a country, and whether those conditions (and others) favour further business development or are likely to repel against it.
It’s with that backdrop that headlines such as "China’s Inflation Hits 11-Year High of 7.1%" appear alarming. Who, you might ask, would wish to start-up or expand into a country so obviously struggling with such macro-economic pressures? From the investor’s point of view, knee jerk connotations of increased costs and lower margins abound – How do we cope with the wage spirals and price expectations caused by inflation? Manufacturers may think “This’ll make our exports seem expensiveâ€?, and so on.
Often, however, it’s worth looking at things in a little more detail, and viewing the situation in a fuller context: In the case of Chinese inflation levels, these have been exaggerated greatly by the unprecedented recent cold snap that’s enveloped the country – with food supplies dwindling as a result.
Moreover, Swine disease has also decimated porcine livestock for the past two years. For a country that eats as much pork as China, a 58.8% year-on-year increase in prices for this kind of meat inevitably has a knock-on effect.
That’s before considering the fact that food products make up about a third of China’s “basket of goods� (used in consumer price index calculations). This, added to short term supply issues, like the above, only further distorts the headline figures. In fact, non-food inflation rose by a whole 0.1% in January, to a not-so-whopping 1.5%.
Leaving aside these macro-economic considerations – while figures like GDP and inflation are generally good indicators of where a country is heading, they usually cloud a whole raft of opportunities that nonetheless exist. Tapping into these sorts of “hidden� insights, therefore, can be of immense value. And it’s what we’re pretty good at doing.
Even if the Chinese inflation situation were a crisis (which it probably isn’t), JFK couldn’t have put it any better:
The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word "crisis". One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognise the opportunity.
p.s. We wouldn’t be telling the whole story if we didn’t also point out that, morphologically speaking, the above quote isn’t entirely true - That doesn’t stop the sentiment being well-placed, though…
Posted in
Market Research China, Market Assesment, International Market Research, Market Research |
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