Real Estate & Facility Management Market Research

Challenge

A large provider of document destruction services required a comprehensive segmentation program to determine where to play and how to win with expansion of its product portfolio. Our research therefore helped our Client:

• Define the target audience in a more meaningful way through identifiable segments that represent different types of opportunity;
• Improve its offering to different segments based on a deeper understanding of requirements, value drivers, unmet needs, psychographics and behaviors;
• Establish a stronger and more differentiated brand position through a compelling value proposition for each segment;
• Optimize targeting and ROI based on a focus on priority segments i.e., lower hanging fruit;
• Inform a successful go-to-market strategy to drive growth from both new customers and existing accounts (via greater customer loyalty, increased cross-selling and higher share of spend).

Solution

The program started with qualitative research (focus groups) to assess the product category and brand positioning. An online survey was then carried out to validate and quantify the findings, supported by secondary research to profile competitors.

The insights from these first two phases optimized the design of the questionnaire for the subsequent online survey. Detailed analysis and latent class clustering revealed the optimal segmentation solution.

Challenge

A world-leader in food service and facilities management required an assessment of the buyer journey and persona profiling across four key business units. This comprised the following key objectives:

• Map the buyer journey for each business unit to determine the various touchpoints from awareness building to purchase consideration, repeat usage and beyond;
• Profile and humanize the buyer personas across the decision-making unit;
• Explore the challenges, pain points and moments of delight in the buyer journey, as well as emotional needs to leverage;
• Understand how to engage buyers in the path-to-purchase;
• Develop value propositions that better address the distinct profiling characteristics of the buyer personas.

Solution

We carried out over n=100 depth telephone interviews across the various business units with individuals involved in the specification and/or procurement of outsourced services e.g., C-suite, Finance Directors and Facility Managers.

The findings were used to inform top of the funnel marketing and sales engagement strategies during the purchase process, as well as account development in terms of nurturing ongoing relationships throughout the contract period to foster greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Challenge

A major industrial distributor sought to understand how its brand is perceived in the market within a competitive context. A multi-audience research program was designed to inform a brand building strategy to establish a winning brand position. This comprised a hybrid research methodology to address the following goals:

• Explore perceptions of brand positioning and value drivers;
• Measure unaided and aided brand associations to identify positions owned versus white space potential;
• Assess brand performance through the brand funnel to identify strengths and weaknesses, and inform brand improvement targets;
• Strengthen the brand’s USP and customer value propositions to be more distinct, differentiated and desirable.

Solution

The research program leveraged internal brand and market knowledge via workshops with primary stakeholders, supported by external deep qualitative insights through focus groups with MRO buyers and depth interviews with strategic accounts. The findings were then quantified through a large online survey enabling analysis across different verticals, audiences, brands used, etc.

This pivotal brand study captured significant interest from our Client’s executive team. The insights led to numerous actions spanning short term and longer-term initiatives aimed at increasing both share of mind and share of wallet.

Challenge

Our Client is a leading player in commercial cleaning machines and equipment with a focus on a more premium offering. Following the acquisition of another company providing middle of the range solutions, our Client required research to map the product category from low to medium to top tier, and to ultimately determine how to best structure its product portfolio accordingly.

Solution

The research addressed key insight needs such as:

• Exploring market needs and expectations around products and services, including drivers of equipment selection;

• Profiling mid-market vs. premium buyers to assess their requirements and value drivers;

• Mapping brand positions and their offerings to structure the category from low cost/value to mid-range to premium.

The program started with depth telephone interviews with distributors and BSCs (Building Service Contractors) for a top-down view, followed by an online survey with facility and purchasing managers across a range of key industry verticals for the bottom-up perspective from the end buyer’s point of view.

The research findings enabled our Client to push the right brand and offering to the right customer through the right channel at the right time with the right message.