Plan of businesses (Part 3): The market study

After the definition of the business, the following part or section of a plan of businesses is the market study.

Before beginning with the development of this section, it is important to understand the difference between the study of market and the section of the plan of businesses denominated the market study.

The market study consists of the act to compile and to analyze information coming from the market; whereas the section of the market study, is the part of the plan of businesses where we indicated the results of the market study which we have realized.

To realize a market study is an obligatory stage at the time of elaborating a plan of businesses, this one will allow us to obtain and to analyze information coming from the surroundings and, that way, to a great extent to verify the feasibility of the project, and to take advantage of this data to design the best possible plan.

On the other hand, the part or section of the market study, will allow to show the reader the information or the most important results us obtained when realizing the market study, demonstrating the feasibility of the business, and to indicate the strategies that will be realized to take advantage of this information.

The part of the market study would have to contain the following elements:

Analysis of the sector

The part of the analysis of the sector consists of a description of the sector or trains in which we are going away to locate, as well as of the antecedents of this one, and how it has been evolving.

In this point we can indicate, for example, the size of the industry, our position within this one, its film stars, the passed, present and future sales, the perspective of growth, the tendencies, etc.

In order to obtain data necessary to realize the analysis of the sector, we can go to diverse sources such as Internet (for example, the government pages), publications and magazines of businesses, or offices of government, where we can obtain data on statistics, tendencies, information, investigations, etc.

Analysis of the demand

The analysis of the demand is perhaps the most important part of the market study, consists of analyzing the objective public to who we are going away to direct, to know its main characteristics, and to try to decipher what so arranged would be in acquiring our products or services.

First step to realize analysis of demand is to realize segmentation of market, which consists of segmenting the total market that exists for our product or service, and choosing among the resulting markets, the most attractive or advisable market or markets to penetrate.

Once we have chosen our objective market, we must analyze it and to indicate in this part of the analysis of the demand the most important characteristics of the consumer conforms who it, for example, we must indicate how many they are, how fast are growing, which are their tastes, desires and preferences, where they buy, when they buy, each how long buy, how much they spend in average, which are their habits of consumption, its customs, its attitudes, etc.

In order to successfully obtain information necessary to realize the analysis of the demand, we can resort to diverse sources, but the usual thing is to directly obtain the data of the consumer; for it, the used method more in this case is the survey, where we must formulate the questions that allow us to obtain the required data, for example, some of the questions that would conform the survey could be: “use you east product? ”, “what would add or change to him? ”, “where it usually he buys? ”, etc.

Prognosis of the demand

The prognosis of the demand (or prognosis of sales) is obtained through analysis of the demand; it consists of foretelling how much it would be the demand or the sales of our business for a period of certain time.

For it, at the time of making the analysis of the demand we must try to decipher the intentions of purchase of the new product on the part of the consumers, for example, in the case who we use the method of the survey, some of the questions which we could include in the survey could be: “it would be arranged to prove this new product? ”, “how much it would be arranged to pay by him? ”, “each how long acquires similar products? ”, etc.

To realize the prognosis of the demand, will allow us to make our projection or budget of sales, that is the budget from which the others will be elaborated; reason why we must try that the prognosis of our demand is most real possible.

Analysis of the supply

The analysis of the supply also known like the analysis the competition, consists of the study realized to the companies that will compete with us, or are companies who produce or sell products or services similar to ours (direct competition), or companies that produce or sell products or services substitutes to ours (indirect competition); with the purpose of to know if really we will be able to compete with them, and to obtain data that allows us to do it of the best possible way.

In this part of analysis of supply, we must to indicate how many they are (or they will be) our competitors, which are main, where they are located, which is his capacity, which is its experience, which are their main strategies, what material or consumptions use for their products, which are his prices, which are his channels of distribution or points of sale, what average advertizing uses, which are their strengths and weaknesses, etc.

In order to successfully obtain information necessary to realize the analysis of the supply, the usual thing is to make use of the technique of the observation, for example, when visiting the premises of the competition or buying some of its products to be able to analyze them better. Another form to analyze the competition is realizing informal interviews to workers, ex- workers, suppliers or clients of this one.

Analysis of the commercialization

In this part of the analysis of the commercialization we must indicate to the main aspects and strategies related to the four elements that conform the marketing mixture (product, price, place and promotion).

For the product we indicated which will be their main characteristics, its main attributes, the services that it will include, the benefits that will contribute to the consumers, etc.

For the price we indicated which will be the price that will have products or services, the reasons for which we have chosen this price, the margin of utility that we will obtain, the strategies of discount that we will use, etc.

For the place we indicated how the products will be distributed, which will be the points of sale that we will use, the reasons for which we have chosen these channels or points of sale, etc.

And for the promotion we indicated the advertizing promotions of sales that we will use, means that we are going to use, the advertizing motto, etc.