Expert Forum 1

Market Research: A Bridge Between Strategy and Implementation.

To run a successful business you need to know all about your potential and existing customers and the marketplace you operate. Regularly assess who your competitors are, their strengths and weaknesses, who your customers are and what they want, and whether there are any gaps in the market. Get as much information as possible from a variety of sources to help you understand your marketplace. Find out about economic and industry trends, customer requirements, newly released products and what your competitors are doing. Market research is a most valuable tool for all businesses. It is the process of gathering information to help you make informed decisions about the marketing of your business. Statistics and other market research data help you understand your potential customers and their needs, as well as what your competitors are doing. Getting a good understanding of market trends is essential for you to make the most of your business opportunities. Look for information in market reports, government statistics, trade publications and industry association publications.

Whether you are a first time strategic planner or you are a veteran of many cycles of the process, you realize that you need good information if you are going to make good decisions. With effective market research, you can determine the need for your service, a product's likelihood to sell, target-market demographics, and desirable store locations. Research plays a key role in knowing which of your new business ideas will fly in the marketplace. To be successful, you have to know your potential customers inside out. One entrepreneur reflects on the essentials of market research. This will not only help you determine the market for your product, it will also provide information that is critical i f you need to secure financing. In addition, the process will yield valuable information about your customers that will help you adjust your ideas. It is not surprised that entrepreneurs, who are most successful, are those who visit as many potential customers as possible . First , they try to sell the prospect the notion that they are right and the prospect should become a customer. Second, they listen to the prospect to learn why they are wrong and why the prospect should not be a customer. The successful entrepreneur is listening from the very beginning, in order to change and adapt more quickly to real market needs. Entrepreneurs who spend a lot of time trying to understand why they don't have it right are very likely to be selling a lot more of their product, a year later, than those who only try to prove they are right and insist that the customer is wrong.

Market research is a prelude to selling. It teaches you a great deal about what you will need to know to develop your offering for the market and whether your offering is even worth developing. If you have decided to become an entrepreneur, then also decide to become a market researcher. Ultimately, the two are inseparable. Without the necessary information, you are simply flying blind in a storm, headed for a crash landing. Market research does more than confirm your "gut feeling," it provides critical information and direction. It identifies market needs and wants, product features, pricing, decision makers, distribution channels, motivation to buy. They are all critical to the decision process.

Whatever your business or products in a dangerous period, a permanent, the period of maturity or recession, you must understand and control the movements of the market that competitors and consumers reaction to the situation faced by the enterprises, market competition, market competition truly become strong.

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