Industrial research remains an integral part of successful business

Marc Ashton: "Information can prove to be extremely valuable."

The question is: why? Cost is undoubtedly one of the biggest worries for SME owners - they're so busy chasing their tails to make ends meet that they never quite get a chance to get their heads above the noise.

As we approach the end of the year, industrial companies finally get a chance to slow down for a moment and try to evaluate their next moves. Very often the decisions facing industrial companies are:

• How well recognised is my brand?
• How do I shape up against my competition?
• What markets can I try to enter?
• Where should I be directing my marketing budget? (In particular if we are trying to enter new industry sectors)
• Who is making a buying decision on their product or service?
• How much are prospective clients spending on my product or service?

Smaller companies with tighter budgets cannot afford to allocate their resources poorly. If they enter a market where they commit time, their limited resources and money only to find it overtraded or they can't compete against the existing pricing structures, they may find they have made a costly mistake entering here.

SME owners very often dismiss "research" as being too costly and only for the big players with a "bit of fat" left over in their budgets, but let's be honest - before they went into business for themselves they probably conducted some form of research off their own bat before getting started.

Consider this for a moment - we've recently been involved in two research projects - one in the telecomms sector and a second in the industrial sector. During the time that we were undertaking interviews relating to these projects, we received the following kinds of responses from people with handling the buying decision:

A. "Product XYZ is terrible and we've had enough of their lack of support so we've made an in-house decision to shop around for a bit."

B. "We have just had CAPEX approval for an upgrade to this part of the plant so we'll be sourcing suppliers shortly."

C. "Brand ABC? Yup I've heard of them - their product is good - a little expensive but great quality."

This kind of feedback can have a far greater return on investment than simply going with a hit-and-miss strategy of random advertising for instance. Already your sales team have an idea as to where they can focus their attention and whom they can contact.

So, what does independent research provide for you?
1. An outsourced model for gathering up-to-date information on your product or service
2. An information gathering service that is not influenced by being attached to your company - i.e. the responses are not generated because it is YOUR business conducting the research
3. An outsider's perspective on how your product may be placed
4. Fresh datasets
and
5. Most critically… TIME. Business owners do not have to give up their own staff to conduct this research, so it provides a seamless addition to their offering.

Conclusion

Companies in the SME sector needn't shun research time purely on a cost basis; the quality of information coming back can prove to be extremely valuable.

About the author:

Marc Ashton is the owner of Rival Industrial and the managing editor of ManufacturingHub.co.za (http://www.manufacturinghub.co.za) - a print and on-line publication for the SA food, pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmetic manufacturing industries. The company focuses on corporate wellness, industrial research, publishing and design and focuses largely on the food, pharmaceutical and associated industrial sectors. For further information visit http://www.rival.co.za, call 011 673-4421 or e-mail