VOL. 0012 – FLORIDA, THURSDAY, MAR 16, 2023
Juan F. Arjona Harry
President & CEO Strategee
Growth is an imperative for every company. One of its great challenges is to grow at least as much as its industrial sector or category grows, and to grow making money.
Growing less than the category already creates a greater difficulty for us, since the correct interpretation is that part of the growth is being taken by competitors.
Growing intelligently requires a little more careful analysis of what are called the true and profitable opportunities in the market. Beyond the traditional strategies of going out to look for new markets in our geography or in new geographies, there are other analysis alternatives to find sources of growth. The identification of opportunities in the market can occur by activating any of the following vectors:
Segmentation of consumers in the market: it is possible that a Deep review of a total market allows us to visualize new trendsetting consumers who are those called "innovators", and who are those who create new market segments. A clear review of the breadth of the portfolio due to its depth would give us immediate information on which segments we still need to cover and not to mention when it comes to new segments -due to new trends- whose consumption is always growing vigorously and generally very good profitability. Disruptive segmentation means that today multi- segmentation and cross-channel go hand in hand, causing entire categories to be born in distribution channels where they were not before.
Analysis of purchasing patterns: it is important to take key data on the way in which consumers buy, pay for and dispose of products, since there are opportunities to grow -via the development of new possibilities for consumers- when data is analyzed. such as where, how, when you bought and how you paid. The emergence of Fintech, of new channels such as Hard-discount and other examples, shows us how a good purchase analysis can offer us enormous growth possibilities.
Direct competitive analysis: results from directly analyzing those brands or companies against which we are losing sales or Market Share. Above all, placing special emphasis on what are called parity points to change the rules of the game there, generating the greatest possible differentiation in the category and creating a new attribute or modifying the attitudinal assessment of current attributes. Likewise, identifying those weaker competitors, to guide the entire strategic and tactical arsenal to grow on account of their loss of sales, given their competitive weakness.
Indirect competitive analysis: this is where we have enormous possibilities, when we consider that our offer is a solution to a need whose range of satisfaction possibilities may be broader than the product that our company sells. In this way, huge “big fish lakes” are identified, when we are able as a category to see that the same need can be satisfied in different ways and thus, give birth to new interpretations of the market and, therefore, to a new portfolio with the advantages of innovation and the margin.
. Analysis of complementary products and services: this is where it is convenient to broaden the vision a little more to get out of the category at moments of consumption, in which there is a "consumer environment" and it is precisely this consumption environment that makes alternatives possible. such as cross-selling of products for the moment of consumption, even impacting the presentation and display strategies in the channels. In some cases, adding innovations to the current portfolio, or simply using the "bundle" sales strategy, thus raising the average ticket.
Diversification analysis: here it is critical to consider that an analysis of the company's or brand's competitive capabilities must be carried out previously, for when these capabilities are the ones that are diversified, but not the activity diversification per se. Once the demonstrative analysis of the business capabilities is available (for example: fulfillment; marketing, innovation, services), the analysis must continue to identify those industries that share the same need for competitive capabilities and estimate the sizes to program the budgets of introduction and arrival in those markets.
Analysis of new markets: here it is about analyzing the goals of growth and coverage of the rates of use and/or consumption by consumption occasion, plus the number of consumption occasions for the category; finding that possibly the rate of use and/or consumption per consumption occasion in a certain market or geography is already at the limit (world upper limit or world average consumption expressed in consumption rate per consumption unit or its per capita), then It is necessary to study -with the same perspective of this metric- which markets still need to be developed and prepared for their entry.
Analysis of the environment: here the analysis of the legal environments is valid -not in a few occasions governments leverage industries or markets with regulations that create opportunities-; likewise the environmental, technological and economic environment, which create opportunities for growth and/or improvement of margins through innovation and/or use of established legal frameworks. And not to mention everything that is becoming a trend among consumers and that with its evolution and progress creates large markets.
At Strategee - together with our clients - we work intensely to find all these possibilities for profitable growth and expansion for their operations and their brands.