What and Why:

The scope of Market Research is to collect and understand the qualitative and the quantitative information of the market and customers with reference to a product/ IP solution.

Market research predominantly includes study of industry trends, market trends, technology trends and Customers. We can use this to identify target markets and customers for a product / IP solution. The trends in the industry can have significant impact on the business associated with the product/IP solution.

• In an increasingly competitive and industrialized market, we see the increasing influence of commoditization and consolidations on the business of products or solutions of a company. With markets becoming saturated with no growth margins, we see a number of mergers, acquisitions, as well as major players exiting the industry space. All of these factors can have significant impact on the IP solution or product business.
• The product can be impacted by trends in the industry due to changing customer behavior, for example the increased usage of social media and its adoption for marketing activities, the continuous increase in data consumption on mobile devices, is causing all channel consumer marketing to influence product business.
• Development methodologies such as the adoption of analytics in defining product requirements, open source usage, ready-to-use framework adoptions, and cloud based solutions also having impact on industry trends, and consequently, on the research for the product development. Industry trends around standardization and compliance or certification bodies can also influence the product development.
• There are other industry trends to consider, for example, changing business or commercial models like SaaS models, pay-per-use pricing and also the influence of growth phases or cycles and saturation, seasonal sales, etc of the industry.
• Market research for product development should also include a thorough look at the government regulations around the industry, such as environment standards, compliance, etc.
• Finally, in a technology-driven world, newer ecosystems or changes in ecosystem players also greatly influence the products or solutions of a company. Your market research should consider all ecosystem changes and developments (like Android or iOS ecosystems for mobile applications, cloud platforms, etc).

In addition to the above industry trends, it is necessary to look for the trends in technology that can impact the product or solution. Take a close look at the innovation adoption lifecycle of technologies relevant to your product industry. It is necessary for us to assess the impact of new technology or change in technology for the product or business. For example in-memory data base like SAP-HANA is driving real-time analytics market. Also assess the need for adoption of the new technology, its benefits and challenges, monitor the developments around the technology, and then make an informed decision whether or not to adopt the technology. A well known tool is the “technology hype cycle” which represents various phases a new technology typically goes through in the market. It is necessary for a product manager to keep track of the phases of any new technology relevant to the product or IP solution being managed.

Market research from Customer perspective is performed to study the target customers of the solution and understand their needs. A particular product or solution can be applicable to wide sub-categories of customers, however the solution developed by the company can address the challenges/problems of a certain set of customer categories more effectively than some of the others and there is maximum benefit to such customers. In addition, there will be higher business results/benefits (in terms of margins, ROI etc) to develop such a solution/product. Hence to optimize the efforts and investments, it will be necessary to segment the target customers on different possible parameters and collect information about them. For example if a product/solution is targeted to a particular industry, then segmentation can be on various multiple parameters. For example, in Retail it can be on size of the company, retail category (eg; Food & Beverage, General merchandise, Electronic, online, Apparel etc), geography/location, etc.

Who, How and Best Practices:

Market research is mainly performed by Product Marketing Manager. However in the early stage of the product life cycle (especially during marketing sizing or business plan preparation or product strategy definition) Product Strategist is involved in market research activity.

Market research performed to address a defined objective is more effective than doing a general research.

Market research is required for supporting both strategic and tactical decisions associated with a product/IP solution and its scope & purpose varies based on the stage of product life cycle. It can be performed to collect inputs for activities like Market opportunity analysis and sizing, preparation of Business plan, defining Product Strategy, performing Competition and eco-system analysis, defining Commercial model and pricing, etc.

However, for the initial scope of market research on Trends and Target Customer, the major areas covered include:

• Study and analysis of Industry and Market trends.
• Identification of technological trends that have, or may have an impact on the proposed or existing product or IP solution.
• Customer geographies, behaviors, challenges, and problems. Most relevant customers’ profile for the proposed solution. It is important to analyze if the product or IP solution is really solving a critical problem for the potential customer, or his helping them address an important new challenge.

This is the foundational task for performing Market Sizing.

There are two main types of market research; primary and secondary. Primary research is original research collected by you directly from your sources. You can collect this information by conducting customer or partner interviews, surveys, debriefing Sales Reps and Account Executives, networking and trade shows, collecting feedback on existing products, participating in forums, business communities, standards committees, etc. This method is used when there is no pre-existing information available.

Secondary market research, on the other hand, involves the search and collection of information from existing data that has already been published by other teams or third parties. This can include information from internet searches, analyst reports, and social media trends on websites like Twitter or Facebook, media articles, press releases, etc.

Since primary research is an original research, you can collect information very specific to your product requirements, and also have direct control over the quality of information. Secondary research has the advantage of being quicker and cheaper than primary research, but it can have the drawback of not having enough specialized information about your product.

Product marketing manager / Product strategist shall initiate the market research activity with a specific objective. It is necessary to have reasonable understanding of the proposed product/IP solution (or the existing product/IP solution) to perform effective market research. Once Product marketing manager has good understanding of the objective, he/she shall decide on the kind of data/information required to be collected/analyzed.

However, in some instances it may not be possible to decide on requirement of such information. In such scenarios it suggested to perform exploratory high level market study/research till there is reasonable clarity on the type of data/information required to be gathered.

Identify the sources/methods to be adopted for collecting such data/information. Start gathering the data from all the sources through the selected methods. Organize the data and analyze to derive any emerging trends that will have impact on the product for specified objective. Look for both direct and indirect aspects that can have an impact on the product/IP solution.

The output of the market research activity shall be documented in a report with the following key sections:

• Objective of market research
• Description of the methodology
• Details of various trends observed and other key information collected
• Recommendations / Conclusion / Inference
• References / Source of data

Notes:

• Product Marketing Manager (PMM) can seek support from internal MCOS team within Capgemini for market research activity. These teams have subscriptions to many commercial market research reports and databases.
• PMM can seek support from Analyst Communication teams in specific situations where it is required to get some independent third party views/opinions.
• PMM can also obtain guidance and support from Central IP team in the process of market research for the solutions in Ready2Series portfolio.
• Some of the above would need additional budget to get the support. Please check with relevant teams with specific requirements.

References:

• Check list (TBD)