MARKET INTELLIGENCE

Learning about your target markets before you start can save time, money and wasted effort

Competitive analysis
Before entering new markets you should know what kind of competition you will be facing. This will usually be a combination of competitors you face at home, local champions with a strong domestic market position, and companies from other countries. Understanding the strength and structure of the competition can be critical in deciding what resources to allocate to a given market.

The essential elements to consider are:

Identify the companies that are operating in your potential markets
Determine their relative market position
Develop a profile of the primary competitors, including their strengths and weaknesses
Describe how they conduct their business, e.g., are they selling direct or going through channels; what is their target market; have they established any strategic alliances.

Market research
If time and resources allow, you should conduct a detailed analysis of the potential in specific markets, including:

An estimate of the number of companies that could be prospects for your particular technology
Identifying and profiling the actual prospective companies
Detailing the possible partner opportunities that exist, including resellers & distributors, potential OEM partners, systems integrators, and organizations with synergistic services. These will be prospective partners whose own sales activities and relationships with targeted clients can be leveraged.

Market Discovery Trips
There is no substitute for actually visiting the country you want to do business in. Desktop research has its limitations, in that it does not allow you to really gain an understanding of the culture, the people and the opportunities that exist. It is strongly recommended that companies spend a week in a targeted country to learn how to do business successfully in that particular market. The trip should provide a highly targeted, cost effective, in-country immersion experience which will:

Enable a quick evaluation of the appetite of a few strategic organizations for your technology and solution.
Facilitate discussions with pre-screened executive decision makers in targeted strategic prospects (partners, clients, finance or other) with a high probability of generating business.
Enable a rapid snapshot of the market and its potential.
Give an appreciation of the opportunities and challenges of doing business in a specific country as well as gain relevant cultural insights.