Market Strategy

Unsure of how to grow, firms often struggle with questions about how they might offer value and which markets are the most promising targets. Blue Canyon addresses these concerns with a methodological approach for defining customer chains and then contextualizing those customer chains to the market. This process helps clients understand which customer chains offer the most profit and growth potential, how they can provide differentiated value for customers and which market segments to pursue.

Define the customer chain:

In most business markets, customer chains involve many customers who are highly interdependent.  The marketplace cultivates many different customer chains, that involve multiple and often distinct pathways. Blue Canyon works with clients to chart and understand the customer chain which:

a)    Identifies “weak links” to establish growth opportunities

b)    Acquaints a client with the players up and down the chain

The basic customer chain pictured below demonstrates the roles of various players in an electrical components project.

Understand the Market Map

When companies segment their markets according to factors that drive buying behavior, they can identify how to create value and learn which obstacles must be overcome in their pursuit of sustainable growth. Blue Canyon’s market map is a helpful tool in deciphering buyer behavior.

Customer Strategy

Major customer relationships can be a supplier’s best opportunity for growth, a critical source of margin, and also a constant challenge. These important relationships are typically complex, involving multiple products and services, numerous global locations, and frequent interactions across various business functions—from engineering to operations to sales to customer service. Furthermore, the scale of such relationships adds to these complexities by attracting the attention of both competitors and supply chain managers who are eager to drive prices down.

It is possible for clients to create a win-win situation with mutual gains for themselves and their major customers. Suppliers must define the appropriate business strategy and implement a solid relationship management process in order to enjoy a healthy, sustained relationship with each of its major customers. To achieve this goal, Blue Canyon helps clients answer these questions:

• How can we foster growth with major customers without sacrificing profitability?
• How do we do more business with our major customers and avoid relationship stagnation?
• How can we effectively meet the varied requirements at all levels and across all business functions in our customer’s organization?
• How do we get rewarded for innovation, for the “solutions” that we bring, and for high-value integrated services?
• Which customers will reward us and collaborate in building a strong sustained relationship, and how do we encourage them to do so?

Blue Canyon has also developed tools to help build sustainable customer strategies. These tools help spotlight positive relationship building behaviors and enable clients to put action plans in place to promote continued sales growth.

The chart below summarizes a relationship assessment activity that evaluated the scores of a supplier (in green) against benchmark standards (in blue).