Market and Competitor Intelligence in a Business Environment
The major manufacturers of animal remedy products in New Zealand
lacked critical market information on the purchase and use of their
products. Individually, each were aware how much they produced. But
they didn't have the knowledge from the end users' perspective -
what brands farmers purchased in what formats and in what
quantities, from whom they purchased and how it was used. The
challenge was to set up a tracking system to gather ongoing market
intelligence of actual use patterns that was easy to administer,
timely, and would provide high quality and accurate data.
Ignite Research established an online panel of large sheep, beef
and dairy farmers to record, collate and report on this data on a
quarterly basis. Client companies could access this information via
an interactive web portal, essentially giving them real time market
intelligence at their fingertips.
The knowledge gleaned from this panel has helped the companies:
get an indication of overall market size by segment; look at
overall market share by company and see how well they are going;
make product development decisions based on market share by
product; measure the success of the company by trends and see if
what they have been doing is working; understand which distribution
channels support which brands; and use as communications tools to
customers, shareholders and staff of market dynamics.
