Few organizations have come through the past two years untouched by the recession.  Even in the government market – one of the more stable sectors of the economy – spending is being more closely watched.  Changes to the contracting process mean that established relationships with agencies are not a guarantee of future business.  Equally important, competitive landscapes are in flux, as many companies struggling in their core commercial markets vie for a presence in more lucrative government markets.

For some, these new dynamics pose an even greater need for replacing outdated assumptions with accurate and current business intelligence that can drive smarter decision-making.

Market Connections recently completed an Attitude, Awareness and Usage (AA&U) study in which we asked our client’s federal audiences how they perceived the company and its competitors.  Interestingly, our client was unaware that it was competing against the company that respondents most strongly perceived as its competitor.
In fact, this competitor had successfully established a reputation for highly skilled technical personnel and innovative solutions within our client’s core target market. Furthermore, the research found that the audience perceived these two attributes as more important than almost all others when selecting a contractor.

In addition to identifying two serious competitors that company executives had previously discounted, the study revealed that our client identified its own strengths very differently than how the market identified them. The study results gave our client an accurate picture of:

• the competitive environment
• the vendor attributes that are most important to the market, and
• how they are perceived by the market on those attributes
• the priorities most important to their target market
• the channels and media most preferred by their target market

Our client is using the findings to develop new marketing, business development, and client engagement strategies that will more effectively discriminate them from competitors. So, if you think times are too lean to spend money on market research, think again. It could be the smartest investment your organization makes as it prepares plans for improving performance in 2010.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 11:34 am and is filed under Current Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.