trendspotting, market discovery and market validation

Common Sense into Common Practice

Trendspotting, Market Discovery and Market Validation

Proven techniques that reduce the impact of hype and noise

2© 2015 Egress Solutions. All rights reserved.

Discussion Topics

Market Discovery Activities

Trendspotting Context Identifying emerging Trends Separating good signals from the noise

Market Validation Activities How big is opportunity?

Analyzing Market Data

Customer specific data Lean justification

2

Egress Solutions, Inc.

Product management, product marketing consulting firmOur capabilities include:• Market Discovery and Validation• Win/Loss Analysis• Product team assessments• Custom workshops• Consulting In operation since 2009, serving our customers in US and the UK implementing product management frameworks.

www.egresssolutions.net

Customer Engagements

http://www.sunquestinfo.com/Pages/index.html

http://www.sumtotalsystems.com/index.html

http://www.microedge.com/home


Egress’ Consulting Methodology

Uses best practices of Pragmatic Marketing and Lean Product Management:• Framework implementation concepts• Hands-on Implementation Workshops• Product management team support

Pragmatic Marketing Framework

Copyright Pragmatic Marketing, 2016


What is trendspotting?



Is this noise or a trend? What is the actual problem? Are there systemic drivers? What about environmental

influences? How much time do we have?



Who are our buyers and users?

What pains and gains are critical to them?

What value do they place on a solving these issues?

What alternatives are available to satisfy the gain or alleviate the pain?

Source: © 2016 Gartner, Inc.


Key drivers to market & product success

Market ValidationAre these problems pervasive with buyers/users?How does this opportunity align with our strategy?Are there better options for us?

Business HealthHow does this product/solution contribute to overall company performance?

Market DiscoveryWhat unmet needs frustrate our buyers/users?Where is the competition focused?What is feasible with our current architecture?

Dependent upon…


Finding Market ProblemsExisting Customers• Increment

al improvements

• Deployment insights

• Advance capability

Competitors Customers• Product

comparisons

• Selling tactics

Non-Customers• Barriers

to purchase

• Unmet needs

Beware of early feedback; it’s mostly noise Collect from a variety of sources Repeat visits well help refine assumptions Raw inputs must be structured


Win/Loss Analysis

Source of validation for emerging trends Integrate Win/Loss with other market research Best results come from a programmatic approach Can leverage what you have in place


Competitive Assessment

Product Centric vs. Market Centric• How strong is our existing market position?• How strong is our market velocity?• How much pricing power do we have?• In the ways which matter to customers, how do we compare?

Market CentricProduct Centric


Technology Assessment

Value of Customer Gain or Pain Addressed

Com

plet

enes

s of

So

lutio

n

Ours

Theirs

Others

Potential Threats

Niche Players

Who is your market?

“Opportunities lie in the place where the complaints are….” — Jack Ma

Success Story: KeyTech Services

The Challenge Customer migration solution sales had

stalled

Existing customers questioned value of solution

Cost of deployment exceeded budget

Senior leadership evaluating “killing” product

Success Story: KeyTech Services

Triangulate the emerging trends with buyer priorities and behavior

Validate user behavior and experience with current offering

Refine market segment

Identify ideal buyers/users for next release

Who is your market?

“Customers adopt new capabilities when the value gained is at least 3X the pain of change….”

— Anonymous

Success Story: WellCare Systems

The Challenge Product adoption for a series of

new releases and new offerings was poor

Existing customers lacked general awareness of new capabilities

Sales continued to offer existing or older versions of products

Success Story: WellCare Systems

Integrate go-to-market into product lifecycle Require pre-launch success metrics Make product management accountable for launch success Established rules of engagement for all departments. Require senior management signed off


Success Story: CPQTechnology

The Challenge Large and competitive market

opportunity• Significant white space• Attractive greenfield

Tension around product strategy• Competing priorities • Capacity trade offs

Lots of opinion and lots of raw data


Analyzing market data for effective decision making

Converting market discovery, market validation, customer data and competitive intelligence into meaningful information that improves the business is a stakeholder driven process.

The Bottom Line

Trendspotting is essential

Triangulate feedback to weed out the noise

Knowing your buyers and users trumps traditional research

Your competition could be chasing noise – Let them!

Data analysis is a good tie breaker

Think short, medium and long

Collaborate

Be decisive

Commit and Go

Thank you