The Importance of Innovation

It can be tempting to shut down new and risky projects when economic conditions are tight, and you must use your resources wisely.

Research shows that tough times are precisely when you should continue to innovate and change.

Value-focused innovation and growth can make businesses stronger than ever in a recession and this helps position them for brighter days. Manufacturers who choose to innovate are 1.8 times more likely to grow overall sales. More telling is that those who innovate during times of crisis outperform those who don’t.

Consumers also appreciate the efforts of businesses to hear their needs when money is tight, with 63% of purchasers willing to buy a product that has used innovation to make it more affordable.

Need an Extra Pair of Hands?

Every business is watching their budget at the moment. Hiring a freelancer during a recession can give a business the expertise, flexibility and strategic support to weather hard economic times.

My AIIP colleague, Linda Rink, gave these great reasons why having a freelancer do just that in your business can be smart.

The benefits of having a freelancer are…
1) Freed up staff time for core business or urgent tasks
2)    Reduced costs by not having to hire more staff
3)    Specialised expertise not available in-house
4)    Objective third-party evaluation and recommendations
5)    Extra resources when you need them
6)    Ability to compete with larger companies 
7)    Reduced “ramp-up” time for new initiatives
8)    Fresh perspectives from outside your organisation

If you need help with a research problem and are looking for a cost-effective solution, please call (027 4393795) or email me for a confidential chat.

Why You Need Competitive Intelligence

Crayon's '2024 State of Competitive Intelligence' benchmarking report points to the need for CI for business. This survey finds that 65% of business sales are competitive by nature, and that's only when the client says it's a competitive business pitch. The figure is likely to be much higher, and with times being tough, businesses will have to be better prepared with their knowledge about how the market operates.

If you need background information for a sales pitch, please get in touch.

Light Bulb Moments

New market opportunities can be hard to spot. One way to find them is to look at the internet and social media and see how people are employing ‘hacks’ when using particular products or services. This can highlight pain points for consumers and show you how they have circumvented the issue and found a solution that works. You can then consider offering these improvisations to make your offering more useful as well as exploring different scenarios where your product or service can be used.

The Future of Indoor Farming

Where I live has recently been devastated by flooding. This natural disaster decimated many farms, orchards and vineyards, deeply affecting the social and economic fabric of the region. It’s uplifting to see many of the orchards where I live begin to repair the infrastructure so they can plant again while the future for other growers is still uncertain. With climate change, perhaps farming indoors needs to be considered a more sustainable and efficient method of growing some types of food. Concepts like vertical farming (food grown in stacked layers or vertically) allow fresh food to be grown near big urban areas, reducing transport costs and carbon emissions. For other alternative and perhaps more sustainable ways of growing food, check out this blog post - https://tinyurl.com/yjbrpwhy.

All about New Zealand

Often, I am asked by fellow secondary researchers about where they should head first for general research. Here’s a list of suggestions…

• The New Zealand Government's official website (www.govt.nz) which provides a wide range of information on the country's policies, initiatives, and statistics

• The New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment's website (www.mbie.govt.nz) which provides information on the country's economy, industry, and workforce

• The New Zealand Tourism website (www.newzealand.com) which provides information on the country's tourism industry, including travel guides and destination information

• The New Zealand Transport Agency's website (www.nzta.govt.nz) provides information on the country's transportation infrastructure, including road and public transport information

• Statistics New Zealand's website (www.stats.govt.nz) provides a wide range of official statistics on the country, including demographic, economic, and social data.

Tips for Buying Market Research Reports

There are a plethora of published market research reports out there, but some of these reports aren’t from credible publishers. Here are some red flags for me.

• I look at the pagination of the table of contents and noticed that there isn’t much content devoted to a topic or competitor. Basic I know, but if these aspects are the reason for buying the report, then maybe rethink things. For me, this lack of space often corresponds with just contact details supplied or very generic information. In this case, ask for a sample from the publisher to check the content. You can then appraise the sample to reassure yourself about the standard of English used as well. One sample I requested had such a low level of business English that it was intelligible.

• With markets like medical devices, for instance, there are many different configurations of what is counted or researched in terms of functionality or size. Another trap I have come across is when studying the markets of mechanical devices and how they are powered eg. electric, battery, petrol, or diesel. Researchers often don’t state exactly what they are counting and for what market segment it is meaningful to.

• Cookie cutter reports follow the same prescriptive outline - I can spot one of those a mile off. They are heavy on historical detail, the numbers are dated, and there’s nothing future-oriented. There’s little value in these often expensive market research reports IMHO. Foresight is always going to be better than hindsight to get insight and to protect market share. The ROI of you (or me!) spending time doing a recent news search and see what’s going on now is a much better option.

Data Democracy

Check out Figure.NZ, a website devoted to data democracy. The aim is to make public, private and academic data about New Zealand free for all to use so that evidence-based decisions can improve lives. The website uses graphs to make the data come alive and illustrate trends that anyone can quickly understand. Sadly, the chart below demonstrates that things aren't so rosy at the moment in terms of the establishment of new businesses.

How to Find Market Size and Market Value

Market size info for small markets like New Zealand or niche products can be tricky to find. Sometimes, a best-efforts estimation is the only option. Here are some tips to help you if you need some market size or value data.

1. Define your market first, i.e. by geography, technology, demography, use or sector and stick to it.

2. Formulate how you will do your calculations. It should be a combination of desk research for any published information and primary analysis to back up any initial conclusions and for sense-making.

3. Only use reputable data from secondary research. Look carefully at how they have come to their conclusions and double check it. Does it make sense? Is the data they have measured fit with your market parameters?

4. When doing the desk research, pick up on any trend data that is coming up that will affect future market share, e.g. disruptors entering via new technology, changes in packaging needs, or trends in dietary preferences by customers. This information is valuable as an early-warning indicator of change in the market, allowing you to prepare.

5. Once you’ve got some market size/ value numbers, make sure that you carefully cite the source data. If you need to do this exercise again, it’s a big help to have the framework of past calculations to start from, and then you can tweak if necessary.

6. If statistical analysis isn’t your thing, then gather the data and get someone who knows how to forecast and model numbers.

7. Be transparent - tell people it’s a ‘best efforts’ result, but show how you got to the conclusion you have and what the parameters were. Market size/value is often an educated guess as people, and the choices they make are often very fluid and can change overnight.

Food Kit Market

I have covered Google Trends before, but it’s an interesting tool to track what is being searched for on Google. It’s easy to track competitors or substitutes and see the number of searches being made by company name over time and by geography. Here’s an interesting graph on the two main food delivery kits in New Zealand and Uber Eats. Note the rise in searches of Hello Fresh in November - that coincides with an article in the national press comparing market leader My Food Bag with new entrant Hello Fresh. Interestingly, overseas research is pointing to the delivery of food kits and eat-at-home meals being key to growth for supermarket chains and restaurants. More consumers are staying home to eat because of the Netflix binge effect or they work from home, and don't want to fight the traffic and crowds to eat nice food.