In today’s rapidly evolving world, organizations must recognize new opportunities and threats and adapt quickly.

In order to stay ahead and make the right decisions, it is critical to turn to an objective third-party for industry analysis. Syndicated market research reports are a cost-effective option, but they may not always be specific enough to meet your needs — especially during high-stakes, "make or break" moments. Custom market research studies offer a more tailored solution to meet your unique objectives, and provide the information needed to make important decisions with confidence.

Among all of the services and capabilities we offer at Freedonia Custom Research, the most common are market sizing and competitive landscape studies. Important strategic decisions rely on valid data and clear market analysis. Clients come to Freedonia for our reliable and trustworthy market research process and our high level of collaboration. 

These services and capabilities include:

In our data-driven age, are you searching for ways to present your story in a concise way? With more quantitative or qualitative data than ever, the ability to visualize your insights effectively is a critical skill.

We’re here to help you summarize and display information in a clear, understandable format. When presenting data analyses, you have the choice of bar and pie charts, line graphs, and frequency distribution tables, just to name a few. The table below explains these three types of data presentation styles and includes some tips to help you make the most of each format.

Once heralded as an economic miracle, the Chinese economy continues to slow from its torrid growth during the early part of this decade and last decade. Although officially reported economic figures still reflect a growth rate multiples higher than those of western economies, it has become more and more apparent to business managers and leaders that the economic reality on the ground paints a different picture.

Both residential and nonresidential construction markets are on solid footing, and steady gains can be expected over the next 12 to 18 months. In 2016, year-to-date new home sales are up 9 percent and existing home sales are up about 5.5 percent, according the latest US Census and National Realtors Association.

Furthermore, housing prices are trending upwards and have increased 5 to 6 percent compared to the same period the year before.[1] The US Census indicated in May that the residential housing market was on pace for about 1.164 million starts for 2016, while Freedonia anticipates new residential housing starts will ultimately reach above 1.2 million for the year. In addition, home builder confidence has remained positive throughout all of 2016.[2]

There are more data sources than ever. Just googling a search term may not be sufficient, as the googled data may be inaccurate and/or biased. You want to avoid making important business decisions based on unreliable data. So which data sources should you use?

We’re here to help you navigate them all. Read on for a quick breakdown of secondary and primary data and tips for finding valuable insights for your market research needs.

In our last blog post, we discussed six ways to differentiate your business from the competition, including product, service, distribution, relationship, image/reputation, and price. We noted that some differentiation strategies are more impactful for businesses than others.

To demonstrate how this plays out in practice, let’s look at some survey data which will help to identify winning differentiation strategies. Based on our survey analysis, one of these areas of differentiation is more powerful than any of the others — by a huge margin.

Differentiation allows you to provide superior value to customers at an affordable price, creating a win-win scenario that can boost the overall profitability and viability of your business. Our research indicates there are six primary ways to differentiate, including product, service, channels of distribution, relationships, reputation/image, and price.

However, not all differentiation strategies are equally effective, and some methods may be more important to invest in than others in order to stand out from the competition. Read on to learn more about these different strategies and the key advantages and disadvantages associated with each one.

Differentiation is providing superior value to customers at a profitable price. If we look at the fundamental equation of business (Figure 1), differentiation may be thought of as increasing value through some combination of more or better benefits or a reduced price. Benefits include product and service performance, but also include availability, image, relationship, and many other performance attributes. Price includes the price charged for the product and service, but also includes terms, total cost in use, paperwork required to complete and track the exchange, and other attributes. Any decrease in price attributes or increase in benefits will increase value.

Unlike most B2C marketers, many B2B companies invest little or no resources (both time and money) in understanding brand awareness, but Harvard Business School Marketing Professor John Quelch challenges this position. His reasons:

• Most B2B marketers cannot economically address thousands of small businesses using the traditional direct sales force.
• If left unattended, individual managers will each do their own ad hoc marketing.
• B2B marketers are realizing that developing brand awareness among their customers' customers can capture a larger share of channel margins and build loyalty that can protect them against lower-priced competitors.