Often the markets you are working in dictate everything about what you do. This can feel a bit like being cast adrift on a stormy sea. The level of control you have over your future often depends on the depth and breadth of the market intelligence you have.
This is much more than just taking a look at what your competition is up to. It is also about gaining full understanding of how the market operates, what is driving it and what may one day destroy it.
Factors beyond your own business and that of your competitors that can have a serious effect on the market can include government policy, legislation, fashion, the environment, demographic changes, new innovative products that remove the need for your offering and even pandemics.
Of course no-one has an infallible way of predicting the future, but the more information you have to draw on the better you decision making will be.
The intelligent part is connecting the various strands of information together to form a picture that can be used to support your business planning.
It should go without saying that having a good understanding of your competitors is essential. You need to know their offering, capacity, price point, coverage and most importantly their strengths and weaknesses.
However, the competition is not always obvious. If you are a car manufacture the option for your prospective customer to not own a car is as valid a competitive challenge as the next marque. Public transport, car share companies, cycling or even walking all create barriers to car ownership. It is not always a choice between one brand and another, but sometimes whether to buy at all.
This is not just about ensuring you have the right unique selling and price points, but also identifying specific gaps in market not covered by any of the competing offerings.
For example, you may wish to target a luxury or industry niche that will be lower volume, but much more profitable for you.
Knowing the market overall can be a very hard challenge. Using historical data will provide some clues of course, but there is no guarantee that what was good in the past will reflect the future. Markets mature just like the products within them mature.
The first iphone was launched in 2007 and since that time the concept of the smartphone has matured and become an almost must-have device. Yet the main manufacturers are struggling to maintain the volume of sales they achieved when the concept came flooding into the market from about 2009 onward.
Changes to smartphones are now incremental and focused on things like camera functions or screen size and quality. The benefits of full 5G connectivity are still waiting in the wings. In fact 5G, may not be such a big winner as it may first appear. Perhaps the biggest benefit of 5G will be to lower the price of 4G data making an always-on 4G connection much more affordable?
The point is that we cannot always say what will happen in the medium to long term future. Government policy, the underlying economic climate, political drivers and even climate change will all influence what happens next. All we can do is make sure the offering is in line, or ahead of, the market maturity and that the business is fully equipped to handle the future volatility as and when it comes.
An honest appraisal of market maturity and what you are offering within the market is required. If, in the business plan the future is always rosy, then the chances are that some assumptions are wrong.
Whatever your aspirations are, they need to be delivered in the real world of tomorrow - not today and certainly not the past.
Chief of the uncertain elements going forward is Governmental whimsy. It has seemed in recent years that the shortened news cycle also dictates that the decision cycle within government is also shortened.
This sometimes means nasty policy announcements come along in fairly short order. So, it is possible launch a plan only to find half way through the project that a government announcement changes everything.
This is so hard to keep a track of, but the parliament.uk website does offer some clues and is certainly worth a glance over in line with any planning cycle you have for the business.
