Market Segmentation Research

Market segmentation study validates worldwide large account sales strategy, increases bid performance

Situation

A leading hardware vendor required validation of a new customer segmentation for its large accounts worldwide, that would have large implications for the client's sales strategy and deployment of the sales force. The client further commissioned NewGrowth to assess the sales force's bid performance across the newly-created segments.

Solution

NewGrowth designed a two-phase research study to meet the client's objectives: 1) 100 in-depth interviews to validate the segmentation criteria; followed by 2) an online survey of 700 large accounts worldwide to measure the client's sales performance by segment.

Results

NewGrowth was able to validate the customer segmentation, as well as recommend adjustments based on customer response to the in-depth interviews. The interviews also provided the vendor's sales force with a priority-based list of decision criteria per customer segment. This allowed the sales force to quickly adapt its selling strategy to the needs of each customer, plus improve response to customer RFP's.

The online survey identified several areas of strength for the client which had not been emphasized by the sales force, as well as some surprising weaknesses of key competitors. The client made several changes to its bid strategy based on NewGrowth's report, which resulted in a hefty increase in sales revenue across large accounts worldwide.