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These case studies are recent examples of DecisionTrend Research’s approach that help companies build market acceptance
profiles for new products or services, or extensions to existing ones. Because not-yet-offered products and services are often
highly confidential, clients are not identified. Examples follow from our practice specialties, and include:
- Segment Dynamics: New customer segments for an innovative software application
- Consideration and Purchase: Purchase dynamics in emerging life sciences fields
- Features Prioritization: Defining a new product in a complex, legacy environment
- Benefits and Positioning: Customer acceptance of Internet-based service
Case Study #1: Segment Dynamics New Customer Segments for an Innovative Software Application
The Company: Young enterprise software company offering an innovative software application to users of critical processing industry equipment.
Problem: After establishing a beachhead for its product in one industrial sector, the company wanted to know which additional one or two industries (both in North America and worldwide) offered the best promise for new business.
Approach: We developed a systematic, multi-phase project:
- Phase 1: Interviews with client company’s executive management, marketing and account executives, and customer support engineers to determine key product features and benefits, and potential industry targets
- Phase 2: Development of a weighted decision matrix which quantified criteria for evaluating potential industries; multiple dimensions were created and refined through the project period
- Phase 3: Secondary research and expert interviews to narrow and expand potential industries
- Phase 4: Qsq Methodology interviews with potential users of the technology solution in industries judged to offer high initial potential
Results: Of five industries that made the final short-list, DecisionTrend Research found one to be of sufficient size, financial robustness, and with high user interest in the technology solution to offer the best immediate prospects. Detailed and targeted information was provided to our client, including major industry players, decision-influencers, and desired product features and benefits. Another smaller industry was found to offer excellent long-term but poor short-term prospects, and recommendations were made on ways to approach that industry. The remaining three industries were judged to offer less immediate and long-term opportunity. Our client is executing on this plan, and within three months has signed up three companies within the target industry to pilot its technology solution.
Case Study #2: Consideration and Purchase Purchase Dynamics in Emerging Life Sciences Fields
The Company: Top worldwide manufacturer of analytical and life sciences instruments, with well-established and respected lines instruments in such industries as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, environmental testing and treatment, oil and gas.
Problem: The company has a foothold in the emerging life sciences fields of genomics and proteomics, but needed to understand consideration and purchase dynamics for the kinds of instruments and tools it offers. It also wanted to inform an upcoming quantitative study of consideration and purchase dynamics.
Approach: Challenges for a study of this type were:
- Practitioners are highly educated and busy people, and have little time or interest in traditional surveys and focus groups
- These fields are global; genomics and proteomics non-profit and commercial centers are located in several countries
Qsq Methodology offered an ideal approach to meet these challenges, allowing us to interview respondents in several countries, including Japan, in their laboratories.
Results: DecisionTrend Research identified key consideration and purchase attributes for each field, and furthermore, identified how several are related to each other. We discovered that genomics and proteomics have very different instrument environments, competitive profiles, and purchase dynamics. We identified key factors that could both help and hinder our client company’s success in each field. Finally, we found company and brand attributes that should be tested in subsequent research.
Case Study #3: Features Prioritization Defining a New Product in a Complex, Legacy Environment
The Company: Worldwide innovation leader in the medical testing industry.
Problem: The company wished to achieve competitive differentiation by expanding core products with value-added software in clinical laboratories.
Approach: We worked with the company’s design and development team to identify the product’s key features, and placed them into easily understandable modules. We also developed strawman product concepts, ranging from add-on modules to a complete and integrated product. The relative attractiveness of features and modules could be quantitatively demonstrated through a proprietary Pscore (product score) metric.
Using Qsq Methodology, we tested the product concept with laboratory decision makers and IT personnel in North America and Europe. IT personnel, in addition to laboratory directors, were chosen because they have high influence on the clinical laboratory information technology environment.
Results: We discovered that what our client’s designers had in mind was often not what potential users needed. We were able to identify the general shape of a product likely to gain market acceptance, including its key features. The client established a new division to develop the product, and has included customer input through all stages of the process.
Case Study #4: Benefits and Positioning Customer Acceptance of Internet-Based Service
The Company: Global manufacturer of testing and analytical instruments.
Problem: The manufacturer must deliver superior service while reducing costs and making field personnel more efficient. To do this, it is planning to launch an Internet-based service that will connect instruments in the field with worldwide service. Two competing vendors offered different approaches to this Internet-based technology, emphasizing differing benefits to end-user customers. Which vendor could offer the most appealing technology for our client’s customer base? What were drivers and barriers to adoption? How might the service be packaged and positioned to customers so that it would enhance rather than cannibalize existing service offerings?
Approach: We developed a service concept that incorporated features from both vendors’ technology designs. Then we tested it with customers in the U.S. and Europe using Qsq Methodology. Since the company’s technology solution was Internet-based, we talked not only with lab directors, but associated IT management, as well.
Results: We found the product concept offered by one vendor to be clearly more acceptable to our client’s customer base than the other vendor’s. We discovered some market segments that offered excellent early adopter beta-test potential. We also found that IT in many companies were important gatekeepers for this kind of technology solution, and needed to be considered when marketing and selling the product. Possible ways of offering the service were explored, and one such offering resonated with customers much more than the others. The company chose the vendor whose solution resonated to customers, and invited several respondents to participate in beta-testing the new service.
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