Marketsensingandlearningstrategy

Strategicmarketchoicesandtargets

Customervaluestrategyand positioning

Strategicrelationshipsandnetworks

Strategic thinking andthinking strategically

Strategictransformationand strategyimplementation

Developing a value-based marketing strategy Market sensing and learning strategy Strategic market choices and targets Customer value strategy and positioning Strategic relationships and networks

Market sensing and learning strategy:Competitive strength through knowing more

Understanding customers and markets Black swans and white swans From market research to market sensing New cross-over tools for management understanding Marketing intelligence Interpretation Lessons in learning Enhancing sensing capabilities

Companies have little understanding of why their customers behave the way they do

Executives looks at averages and ignore market granularity

Agile, fast-moving businesses show high knowledge-intensity

The goal is to raise a company’s “Market IQ” Crunch question = what do you know that every rival

does not also know?

The black swan analogy underlines the limitations to our learning and the fragility of our knowledge

Black swan events are the “unknown unknowns”

Market sensing demands open-minded inquiry and experimentation not probabilistic estimates and sampling

What is the difference between market sensing and marketing research? marketing research involves techniques of

data collection and processing market sensing is a process of management

understanding

Managementinformation

systems

Marketingresearch

Cross-overtools

Marketingintelligence

Market sensingcapabilities

Marketunderstanding

Internal recordsCRM dataDatabases

SurveysObservationMarket tests

EthnographyInternetFuturology

ScanningTrendsClues

Interpretation

Sources of marketing knowledge Processes of managementunderstanding

Limitations of conventional market research unreasonable expectations the limits of questions the “right” results we don’t believe it excuses

The elephant in the market Strategic and non-strategic marketing

information

Importance of information

Urgency ofinformation

High Low

High

Low

Priorities Short-termdilemmas

Strategic Timewasters

Finding out what customers want a product or service to do for them

Solves customers’ problems Rather than asking a customer what they

think of this product or service, the customer should be asked what they like, or don't like, about a particular experience.

Source: Shape the Agenda (2004) The Creative Dilemma: Successful Innovation in fast-changing markets,(3) Cookham, Chartered Institute of Marketing

'Companies that target their products at the circumstances in which customers find themselves, rather than at the customers themselves, are those that can launch predictably successful products. Put another way, the critical unit of analysis is the circumstance and not the customer.‘

Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator's Solution Customers experience life as a series of 'jobs' that they need to get

done. 'Jobs' can be actions ranging from washing your hair or cleaning your

teeth, up to getting your finances sorted or communicating across the globe in a shorter space of time.

Finding out what those jobs are leads to value innovation, rather than asking how what we've got already can be better made to suit the customer's desires.Source: Shape the Agenda (2004) The Creative Dilemma: Successful Innovation

in fast-changing markets, (3) Cookham, Chartered Institute of Marketing

Ethnography hidden in plain sight neuromarketing

Internet sensing the wisdom of crowds blogs virtual reality social networks

Uses long periods of observation of people in their 'natural habitat‘

Closely watching people in their everyday life Example: mobile phone usage. You get an unemployed single mother using it as a

sanction - "if you don't behave I won't give you any money to top up your mobile."

You might get that kind of insight from a focus group but you'd need a really good question.

Source: Shape the Agenda (2004) The Creative Dilemma: Successful Innovation in fast-changing markets,(3) Cookham, Chartered Institute of Marketing

Futurology careful examination of what is going on

around us scenario building – how things may unfold visioning – working out what is likely to

happen and what we want to happen

Trends and clues trendspotting new identity groups the quest for cool looking for clues deep mining

But play nicely and don’t be naughty Managing customer knowledge

Link between information, sensing and management understanding relies on processes of interpretation

Integration of multiple information sources central to evidence-based management

Goal is sustaining learning to create competitive advantage

Storytelling Watching customers Meeting customers Customer days Building customer scenarios Listening not evaluating Studying complainers

A structure for market sensing

Probability of the event occurring

Effect of theevent on thecompany*

High LowMedium

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

* 1=Disaster, 2=Very bad, 3=Bad, 4=Neutral, 5=Good, 6=Very good, 7=Ideal

Utopia Field ofdreams

Things towatch

Danger Futurerisks

Managing the market sensing process choosing the environment sub-dividing the environment to focus attention identifying the impact of external changes interpreting the model for strategy building Linking market sensing to plans providing information as a stimulus to thinking consider who should be consulted and involved

A note of caution market sensing and new learning may be

disruptive inside an organization

Don’t trust any research – at all – none –whoever does it – however much it is “justified”

Don’t trust it When any research clashes with common

sense and personal experience interrogate the research to death

Trust (not unquestioningly) research on past events – for guidance

Never trust research on “intentions” Treat with huge pinch of salt research on

attitudes NEVER MAKE A DECISION ON QUALITATIVE

RESEARCH - ESPECIALLY FOCUS GROUPS

Do research yourself wherever possible Use it for ideas, directions etc FOR

FURTHER EXPLORATION