Launching Service Product in India

India is a unique market when it comes to expectations of the customers. International companies as well as local companies need to understand the nuances of the Indian consumer before they can launch new service into this old market that is evolving rapidly.

Market research in India will help provide the insights of the Indian consumer. We have to ensure that a credible & knowledgeable research company guides the client through understanding the Indian market. Within the Indian markets there are hidden segments of customers which cannot be separated or understood using common methods. A combination of unique techniques & market knowledge has to be used to segment the market appropriately. This will help a company launch a service product effectively.

Service products are virtual, they are hard to describe. Service products are more difficult to understand. It is difficult to communicate a service offering. The views and the buying thought patterns of the end customer are difficult to understand. At the same time appropriately positioned service product can be very profitable & can be delivered with very high margins.

Any Indian research company has to use a combination of methods. They have to use information available in the public domain by conducting secondary research. This is then combined that with depth interview & other qualitative techniques. Then the knowledge is coupled with the power of using quantitative techniques to understand the market size.

Service offerings can be in many different domains including education, legal services, consulting services, travel services, financial services, insurance, banking, legal services, design services, food service, automobile service and others.

Some of the reasons a service launch fails is:

• Poorly designed service
• Lack of adequate investment
• Lack of understanding of the market

However the biggest reason for failure is the lack of understanding of the Indian market. Leaders use their gut instincts and do not conduct a systematic research. Market research in India conducted by a reputed company can help you mitigate this primary risk.

The eMpulse Team
(www.empulseglobal.com)

Historical Evolution of the Indian market

To understand the current Indian market, it is important to understand the evolution of the market in India over the centuries. India was a very prosperous economy in the fifteenth century and the sixteenth century until the European traders entered the country attracted by the prosperity of the region. The economic relationship between the European traders and India led to political linkages and eventually the British started to rule over India as a colony and the prosperity within India began to diminish. Along with it, the political freedom and the personal freedom started to diminish for the Indian citizens and this happened for about 300 years until the Independence of the country in 1947. Because of the manner in which the European traders entered the country & eventually the British ruled over India & as a consequence Indians lost their freedom, trade & economy was sub-consciously blamed as being the root cause for citizens of India losing freedom.
Hence the architects of the new India after independence in 1947 developed the concept of a self sufficient economy. One of Self sustenance and barriers to foreign businesses entering India. A lot of very fundamental infrastructure was built for agricultural economy, the dams, the water systems, the agricultural research, earth moving equipments, railway equipments, aircraft industries. These were all driven by public corporations owned by the government and were protected from international competition. So India was an economy which was insulated from global competition. In parallel the culture of India always encouraged education and learning and there was a good system of schools, colleges & universities, which had built talent within the country. By the 1980s people started to look at the success of globalization around the world and benefits of foreign competition and foreign markets. Indian leaders led by Dr. Manmohan Singh decided to open up the economy to the world to take benefits of globalization. So starting in early 90s there was a series of deregulation from the license Raj. This coupled with computer technologies which reduce the virtual distance between countries created a prosperous new India which also resulted in the new Indian consumer. So currently there are two very distinct markets which reside in India. There is the old stable market which is not consumption driven, which is very stable. Also there is the new global economy which is linked heavily to the international markets which is growing rapidly. These two economies are merging and creating lot of complex dynamics within the market. There are a lot of global companies which are coming into India and creating new jobs. The new wealth is creating new consumption patterns. So it is very important to understand the markets in the old economy, the new economy. It is important to understand the old generation, the new generation & the bridge generation. This is the context in which Indian companies have to rely on Market Research in India to help them navigate them through the market.

The eMpulse Team
(www.empulseglobal.com)

Brand Identity Research in India

Many companies are in the process of launching their brand within the Indian market. Getting the brand identity right is one of the key components of a product launch in any new market. Many global companies wishes to use its current brand identity for the Indian market as well. In this context, these companies commission a Market Research study to assess the suitability of its current brand identity for the Indian market

Brand identity defined in simple terms is the visible elements of a brand (such as colors, design, logotype, name, symbol etc.) that together identify and distinguish the brand in the consumers' mind. Brand identity is fundamental to consumer recognition and symbolizes the brand's differentiation from competitors.

Key objective of a research of this type would be to assist the company to assess the suitability of its current brand identity for the Indian market

Research would also typically have the following supplementary objectives;

 Provide company with a new brand identity if required based on the research
 Recommend a strategy for implementing the new brand identity
 Help understand the brand identity of key competition – to get an understanding of their brand positioning strategies
 Help understand parameters considered and decision making process for products and services among Indian customers – in order to get inputs for brand positioning strategies


Information areas for this kind of research can be broadly grouped into four areas;
1. Reactions to the current brand identity of the company
2. Reactions to alternate brand identity for company ( This will be developed by Indian Research Agency based on Company’s brand positioning and tested during the research.)
3. Understanding the current brand identity of key competition – in order to get insights into competitor strategies
4. Understanding decision making process of current customers – in order to get inputs for brand positioning strategy

The Research Design for this type of projects involve exposing the target customer segment to current brand identity through a concept card and their reactions would be ascertained through a concept test.

Concept testing is a key technique in Market Research to understand the reactions of the target customer segment.

Target customer segment would also be exposed to the alternate brand identity (to be developed by Research Company) in order to assess their suitability and come up with options if required

Target respondent for the research would be the potential customer segment for the company.

Data collection would be carried out through Face to Face Interviews with the target respondent segment

Final deliverable would be typically a PowerPoint or MS Word research report which will answer all the research objectives in detail
As an example, in one study the sample size used was 50 spread across Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad

Summary:
- Concept testing based study with potential buyers of the company
- Research company might develop one or two customized logos using an Indian designer
- Test Company’s logo with any variation and Indian designer logo
- Understand the decision making process of Indian customers in order to provide company with inputs for their brand positioning strategies
- Understand reactions to brand identity of competition
- Provide customer a complete assessment of the suitability of its brand identity for the Indian market

Total time typically needed by leading Indian research agencies for carrying out a brand identity evaluation research would be around three weeks.

The eMpulse Team
(www.empulseglobal.com)

Leadership Depth Interviews to Understand Company Strategy and Tying it to India Marketing Plan

Any market launch in India needs to ensure that the company’s strategy is aligned to the India launch marketing plan.

During this step, the researcher would conduct Individual Depth Interviews with the members of the Company’s management as well as a few key sales/customer service individuals.

Primary purpose of such individual interviews (each scheduled to last about 60 minutes) is to provide the interviewed executives and salespeople an opportunity to reflect on and verbalize their ideas and intuitions on the key challenges and opportunities that the new international marketing initiatives should focus on.

This process of Strategic Interviews is an alternative to the more familiar format of a group brainstorming exercises. By giving each participating executive enough of time to “muse” about and put into words their relevant experiences and ideas as well as by moderator facilitating articulation of their thoughts through a “Socratic Dialogue” – the Strategic Interviews tend to produce important insights that are normally not verbalized during the agenda-driven, everyday business interactions or, for that matter, in the context of group-oriented brainstorming.

The results of the Strategic Interviews together with additional directions from the Company’s Marketing Management would be guiding information of Researcher’s review and analysis of all the available and relevant quantitative data – such as recent trends in the market.

The primary focus for this analysis would be (like in the case of Strategic Interviews) to identify the hypotheses about key challenges and opportunities that the Company’s new international marketing initiatives should focus on.

The eMpulse Team
(http://www.empulseglobal.com/)