Innovation Scouting & Value Proposition Development

What is the next big thing we can offer to our customers? How can our products and services stay abreast of their ever-evolving needs?

To ensure that your offerings are ahead of your customers' expectations and your competitors' capabilities, you need to constantly look for innovations and new value propositions. Synovate's Innovation Scouting services can deliver new ideas for product and service development or enhancement by comprehensively combing through the state-of-the-art in your industry, and also porting ideas and business models from other industries. Synovate's global footprint means that our research can encompass international case studies and identify best practices, while gleaning interesting ideas from even obscure sources. Finally, with an in-depth understanding of your capabilities and strategic objectives, Synovate can "port" these ideas to your set of offerings through its Value Proposition Development services.

Value Proposition Development refers to the systematic process of creating new or revised set of offerings for your customers. Starting with Innovation Scouting and/or an in-depth engagement with your customers to understand their unmet needs and pain points across their value chain, and buying considerations, the process iteratively matches customer requirements with your current offerings – highlighting gaps that need to be filled. An analysis of your strategic priorities, internal capabilities, and degrees of freedom follows, in order to assess the feasibility of developing the required propositions. Cost-benefit analysis is conducted to justify the investments and size the potential benefits of the new services. Finally, an environmental assessment is conducted to test the regulatory feasibility, threat of competitor retaliation, and other risks associated with the new propositions, before they are implemented.

Market Entry Strategy

How do we make a new market entry a successful one?

Thanks to globalization, the majority of the top-line growth for today's large corporations comes from entering new markets. However, examples of botched market entries, spectacular failures of giant players in new markets, and market "re-entries" abound – proving that entering a new market is a complex and risky undertaking. One of Synovate Business Consulting's core services is helping clients enter new market by devising an effective Market Entry Strategy. A successful market entry is a combination of in-depth understanding of the market and its various components (e.g. customers, competitors, regulators) and an effective game plan. Synovate Business Consulting has conducted hundreds of engagements delivering on both these components and creating winning market entry strategies for its clients.

A market entry strategy assignment typically involves a combination of Synovate's core service offerings, such as Market Profiling & Snapshot; Market Sizing, Share & Segmentation Analysis; Distribution & Value Chain Analysis; Partner Compass; Corporate Benchmarking; Forecasting & Scenario Planning; and Value Proposition Development. The assignment culminates in Synovate helping the client organization design and articulate its Go-to-Market strategy – specifications of levers that will be used to execute the market entry strategy, in terms of what to sell, who to sell to, how to sell, and how much to sell.

Synovate Business Consulting's Path to Growth™ consulting framework lays out the components of a comprehensive market entry strategy, highlighting areas where Synovate can add value.

Partner Evaluation & Selection

Who are the potential partners to help me compete better in the business environment?

In a rapidly changing industry landscape, with processes streamlining, specialization of businesses, and the constant redefinition of competition, it is often a challenge to keep up to pace with the marketplace demands while having to develop or acquire new competencies. When developing in-house capabilities are either too costly or too slow, having the right strategic partner to leverage on might be the key to sustaining the business' long term competitiveness. Yet just as in a marriage, entering into a wrong partnership might not only generate little value add to the company's existing business, it could even prove to be a costly mistake. Having a good understanding of the potential partners in the market place is hence important for making such decisions.

At Synovate Business Consulting we help you understand the needs of your business and requirements for that ideal partner. Whether to leverage on their technological superiority, experience and network for entry into unfamiliar markets, or for better process streamlining through complementing each other's business competencies or capacities, Synovate carefully assesses each potential company for not just the best in performance in the assessment criteria, but also the holistic best fit with and alignment with your company. Through our Partner CompassTM solution, we help you search, evaluate, and facilitate the partnership to ensure your continued leadership in the industry.

B2B Branding Strategy

How to leverage on your brand strength, in the apparently "rational" world of B2B products and services?

Brands are not just for consumers. Although B2B procurement decisions often follow "objective" procedures and are made by groups, Synovate's experience shows that brands matter here as much as they matter in B2C markets. This observation calls for B2B companies to see their branding strategy, in addition to superior specifications and personal relationships, as a key driver of their business. Synovate Business Consulting's B2B Branding Strategy solution is an evidence-based approach to provide a precise understanding of the role, value and performance of your brand. Starting by defining the vision, values and strategic direction of the brand, Synovate helps clients identify what changes will be required to their organization, such as in Human Resources, Marketing & Sales, Customer Service, and Product/Service Portfolio to deliver desired brand aspirations. A periodic tracking of your brand can also be set up, in order to measure the success of the branding actions.

Feasibility Studies

How likely is the business model to work in the current market environment?

Launching a new business or project always raises apprehension due to the associated risks involved. While strategic visions of a greater future are exciting, business and investment decisions often require strong justifications of practicality. In the evaluation of each opportunity, understanding the market acceptance and demand for the product, defining the operational feasibility and ease of implementation, as well as evaluating the financial sustainability of the business are essential. Rigorous stress testing and assessment of the business, ensures the most ideal business models to meet the market requirements are developed to minimise risks and maximize potential returns.

At Synovate Business Consulting, we can help you make informed decisions about your business through the most current marketplace benchmarks and intelligence by aligning your strategic visions with pragmatic and actionable business planning. Through our robust feasibility methodologies, we not only help you dream of the future, we will help you make it work.