Market analysis: A sound investment for your company?
When it comes to strategic decision making for companies, the results of market analysis are used with increasing frequency. This is because a professionally conducted market analysis can minimize market risks by analyzing the current market situation as far as your product or service portfolio is concerned and by capturing market and consumer trends, which point to future developments. This enables your company to avoid costly management mistakes.
When should a market analysis be conducted? A market analysis is necessary whenever you are planning to enter a new market geography, customer segment or to launch a new product or service. Experience shows this is when the risk for making wrong decisions is at its highest. In order to prevent this you should conduct a comprehensive market analysis. The best way to do this is to turn to a professional market research company like Market Researchers, for instance.
Which individual steps does a market analysis involve? Usually, a market analysis is comprised of a number of separate projects. At first, the market size for a particular product or a particular service has to be analyzed. Moreover, an analysis of the key market players as well as their service offerings and cost structure, a market segmentation and the identification of the key distribution channels as well as important market and consumer trends are necessary. If you opt for Market Researchers, a market analysis will also often include an industry analysis.
An industry analysis examines the impact of economic, political and other factors on a particular industry. It is often conducted following the Porter's five forces approach which includes an analysis of the following criteria: bargaining power of suppliers and customers, the potential threat of new competitors or substitute products and the competition within the industry. The results of the industry analysis will enable your company to define a business strategy of its own.
A market analysis including the individual subprojects serves the primary purpose of rendering a snapshot of a particular market at a given point of time. It is designed to put your company into a position for strategic and operational decision making. As mentioned above this is particularly important if decisions regarding new products are to be made or new market segments are to be entered. Having your market analysis conducted by a professional provider like Market Researchers will give you an advantage over your competitors since the research results will provide you with a better understanding of the opportunities a particular market has to offer.
