![\"MktInsightOverview\"](\"https:\/\/enlightblogdotcom.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/05\/mktinsightoverview.png?w=234&h=227\")
<\/p>\nYou want to grow your successful business, or maybe you\u2019re falling behind the competition. \u00a0Whether you\u2019re a market leader or struggling to keep up, quality market insights can help improve your returns.<\/p>\n
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How much your customers value your products?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Why your customers value your products?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n What drives the quantities they purchase?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n After you answer these questions,\u00a0consider whether your team would answer the same way<\/b><\/em>. \u00a0Every decision in your company should be aligned behind a common understanding of these business foundations \u2013 and that\u2019s harder to accomplish than you might think.<\/p>\n The Business:\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0A tier one automotive supplier was struggling to sell aluminum parts to major OEMs. \u00a0The aluminum parts were more expensive than the traditional steel versions, but they offered benefits such as lighter weight and higher performance. \u00a0Sales teams pitched improved fuel efficiency from the weight savings but the automakers just weren\u2019t interested.<\/p>\n The Challenge:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0At the time, cars sold in the US were getting bigger and bigger.\u00a0 SUV sales were driving industry growth.\u00a0 The Toyota Prius was only for treehuggers. \u00a0Gas was cheap so consumers didn\u2019t care about gas mileage. Aluminum parts improved MPG, but consumers certainly weren\u2019t willing to pay a premium for it. \u00a0Automakers had no room for extra costs they couldn\u2019t recoup in their sales price.<\/p>\n The Market Insight:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0Better MPG wasn\u2019t a selling point, but aluminum parts have other performance benefits. \u00a0Aluminum has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than steel, meaning the weight savings doesn\u2019t compromise strength or safety. In the 1990s, Ferrari realized that using aluminum instead of steel allowed them to make larger cabins and trunks \u2013 accommodating the needs of professional athletes for more leg and headroom \u2013 and the ability to put two golf bags in the trunk. \u00a0When the Ferrari Modena debuted in 2003 with an aluminum spaceframe, it boasted a 10% increase in size and a 28% reduction in weight\u2026 meaning speed and performance were actually improved.\u00a0 A new value proposition was born: OEMs could improve speed, performance and comfort with aluminum parts. And, those are things that many customers care about \u2013 especially in high performance and luxury vehicles.<\/p>\n The New Strategy:<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0The product was the same, but the target customer and the story were different. \u00a0When the sales team stopped talking to purchasing departments about improved gas mileage and started talking to high performance and luxury vehicle platform managers and designers about speed, performance and comfort, they were able to increase prices, build strategic partnerships and drive more sales.<\/p>\n Who Are Your Target Customers? \u00a0What Benefits Do They Seek?<\/b><\/p>\n As the case study demonstrates, defining your target customer and the benefits they seek is fundamental. \u00a0For many businesses, there is more than one person involved in the decision. Successful companies know who \u2013\u00a0specifically<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 values their offerings by understanding:<\/p>\n Once you understand who your target customer segments are, you can specifically define how these segments benefit from your products or services over your competitors. \u00a0Questions involved in this part of the analysis include:<\/p>\n You may believe you\u2019ve already examined these questions over and over again, but as my mentor, Ronee Hagen, former Chief Customer Officer at Alcoa, used to always say:<\/p>\n \u201cCustomers<\/i>\u00a0are the only people who are consistently putting money into your business<\/i><\/strong>.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Getting and keeping customers is the only way your business will survive over the long term. \u00a0\u00a0Shouldn\u2019t you strive to understand them better than they understand themselves?<\/p>\n How Do Customers Shape Your Business Model?<\/b><\/p>\n OK, so you have a solid understanding of your customers and how your products or services meet their functional, financial, and emotional needs. \u00a0The next step is to incorporate these insights into your business model. Optimizing your business model ensures you\u2019ll\u00a0profit<\/b>\u00a0from serving target customers \u2013 those customers who value your offerings most.<\/p>\n Customers are at the heart of these questions; not the sales team, not R&D, not leadership\u2019s past experience, not what competitors are doing \u2013 and certainly not your best guess. \u00a0Successful strategies embrace the customer\u2019s needs, meeting customers where they are.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen time and time again how deepening a company\u2019s understanding of their customers can bring big returns. \u00a0Regardless of the industry and no matter the client or the market, this work has helped cross-functional management align and drive business value. \u00a0In upcoming posts, we\u2019ll dig deeper into how we do the analysis and how it\u2019s helped our clients.<\/p>\n You want to grow your successful business, or maybe you\u2019re falling behind the competition. \u00a0Whether you\u2019re a market leader or struggling to keep up, quality market insights can help improve your returns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9,23,30],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-competitive-advantage","tag-market-insight","tag-strategic-planning"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/enlightadvisors.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"CustomerAlwaysRightCaseStudyTitle\"](\"https:\/\/enlightblogdotcom.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/04\/customeralwaysrightcasestudytitle.jpg?w=382&h=76\")
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\nBusiness Model Key Questions<\/b><\/h4>\n
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\n Revenue Drivers<\/b><\/p>\n \n
Cost Drivers<\/b><\/p>\n \n
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