3 Steps to ride the Market Headwinds

“If you wait till there is another case study in your industry, you will be late” – Seth Godin.

Markets worldwide are getting so dynamic these days that yesterday’s trend is tomorrow’s passé. In such fast changing environment, any organization would like to have a smart people, who have the ability to lead them into a new league with guiding light. A team of fortune tellers, to predict the tides, so as to adjust the sail.

Believe me – it’s no rocket science. The only thing that you need to do is: do your basics right and here’s how:

1. Market Mapping:

This is a very interesting aspect, here in the complete map of the market should be worked out by the S & M team. Map is mostly used to chart the course of your journey, to estimate the distance, time taken, stops, road conditions, etc.

Here in the same needs to be done with your markets. Organization, its competitors, its customers, end customers, areas, share of business (both yours and your customers SOB – in respective markets). This will show you the current situation (base location). Then chart out the targets with target customers, targeted SOB, time frame, etc. (destination). Now decide the (route) to follow: direct approach, OEM influence, customer’s competition, etc.

Chart a strategy of how you would reach the destination? What are your USP’s? What are your weaknesses? What value do you create – which you plan to sell in the market?

Once this Market Map is ready the next step is planning the course.

Imagine how well Hindustan Unilever would have mapped the market – they have a brand for every market segment. For the bottom of the pyramid they have Clinic Plus, Mid – Sunsilk, top – Dove. Same with, Wheel, RIN & Surf Excel.

2. Planning the Course:

Once the base location, destination and route are fixed, it’s time to choose the mode of transport. This will mainly depend on how much time you have for the journey, have you planned it well in advance / has the 11^th hour arrived. What is the budget?

You will need to decide on which ones are the low hanging fruits / where less efforts would make you win the game. What needs to be the pricing strategy?

Just look at how best the Renault would have planned for the KWID. The features, engine capacity, pricing – the best product mix and it is a HIT. They made a dent in the strong hold of Maruti for the entry level car segment.

3. Execution:

This, as the name suggests is very important step. Refer the quote above – it highlights the danger of delay.

Once the Mapping and Strategy is done there should not be any delay in execution and sealing the deals. Move so fast that even before the competition finds out your strategy you should be far ahead for them to catch up.

Bajaj pulled out of scooter market and now with Honda, Suzuki, TVS, etc. they only have a catch up to do.

TATA’s put themselves, on back burner in passenger cars segment and now are trolling far behind.

Having a strong knowledge of your product, your target market and a firm strategy to reach your destination is a simple mantra to sure shot success.

This article is a part of series on Sales and Marketing articles. You should also go through the following articles and I am sure you will like them as well.