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Welcome to F-stop:
Faulkner Strategic Consulting's monthly eNewsletter
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This month I'm spotlighting the capability of Landscape Assessment.
For those not familiar with term, I'm not talking about evaluating shrubbery, but rather assessing the landscape of a particular market, industry, category or consumer group. Here are a couple questions that Landscape Assessment addresses:
- What are the consumer, market & industry trends, current competitive environment, market size & growth, etc. that make up a given category/industry?
- What impact will those factors have on my new or current business?
Assessing the landscape is often done to identify whitespace opportunities for innovation as well.
- What is the current market structure, based on competition, consumer needs, benefit spaces, etc.?
- Where are the untapped opportunities for new customers/new growth?
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Here are a few mini case studies from my experience to illustrate how Landscape Assessment could help you:
Expanding an established category: a personal needs category wanted to expand beyond their core business, but needed to understand the market dynamics and trends in the new space to confirm the opportunity and help develop a pipeline of innovation. I conducted a comprehensive trends and landscape assessment across products and services, which included: demographic trends, consumer attitudes & behaviors, cultural norms, and competitive benchmarking. Management was inspired by the sizable unmet needs in the new space and committed the investment needed to start development.
Launching a new vertical: an accessories manufacturer wanted to create a new premium line of products with a different consumer target, price point, and distribution channel, but didn't have any internal expertise on this new section of the industry. I led an extensive market landscape with secondary research (e.g. internet/desk research, syndicated reports, etc.), which, combined with the insights from a custom quantitative study, gave them the direction they needed for both the immediate launch and future strategy in a highly time and cost-efficient way.
Identifying sources of future innovation: a global energy company wanted an approach to identify potential sources of new inventions and ideas for an internal innovation incubator program. This was a unique challenge, but I was able to use my experience in the startup space to compile a list of resources for finding entrepreneurs and innovators with a potentially applicable invention or idea. I also conducted deep searches of social media and networking sites to identify specific high-potential clubs, groups, pages, networks, forums, etc. to connect with industry-relevant individual inventors/startups.
I hope this gives you a better understanding or some new ideas about how Landscape Assessment can help with your business challenges and innovation opportunities. Let's talk!
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Thanks for reading this month's issue of F-Stop. Previous issues of F-Stop are available for download here. Feedback is always welcome and please feel free to share with friends and colleagues! P.S. If you're wondering if you missed the April edition of F-stop, don't worry--there wasn't one, just call it a Spring Break!
Sarah Faulkner
Principal, Faulkner Strategic Consulting
Faulkner Strategic Consulting is dedicated to innovation that grows brands, driven by deep consumer and market insights.
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*Why F-Stop? In photography, F-Stop is a measure of lens speed which controls the brightness, or illuminance, of the scene. These concepts are central to innovation as well. The goal of F-Stop is to provide resources, information, and inspiration to illuminate and accelerate innovation.
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