Tag Archives: Market Segments

Creating your market segment

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Any idea starts with identifying the key pain point it is going to solve and which segment of the consumers will it help. Identifying the segment of consumers is more important then the execution plan for the idea itself because, execution plan changes according to your consumer.

There are two ways to do it, either work with the existing segments or create your own market.

Take Audi, when they entered Indian market with their flagship Q7, they did not go into mass advertising.They first identified their segment of consumers – Film Starts and Influential people. Why? Because usually people aspire to be like their favorite stars and successful people. They want to use the same brands like them and they wish to be successful like them.

Audi wanted to create a niche market for themselves and so, they went door-to-door with their sales team. Over the last ~9 years, they have not only build a niche, but created a complete different market for luxury cars in India which Mercedes could not do being here for a long time.

In the recent times, I have seen Big Basket doing the same. They invested in roping in Shah Rukh Khan for their Radio ad. When SRK himself uses Big Basket, why will his fans not?

This is how you create your market. Identify whom your Product relates to and then start from the top.

Market Opener’s

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The key problems in this world are solved. Other not so high priority problems have undergone various iterations and almost settled now. The remaining problems are left for us to be solved.

Today’s innovations are mostly focused on enhancing usability and bringing technology more closer to people.

Each of us have varied definitions of Innovation. In their book on Innovation: 5 Disciplines for Creating what Customers want, authors Curtis R Carlson & William W. Wilmot summarize Innovation as the process of creating, producing and delivering value to what customer wants in the marketplace.

This absolutely stands good for today’s Innovations.

When we look at technology adoptions around the globe, each region/country has its own limitations and opportunities. Certain markets are mature and others are far behind. Can we truly bring the Innovations from the mature markets to the beginner markets? It might not work straight forward, but will create opportunity for competition. When there is competition, market slowly opens up.

The first true e-Commerse market place for India has been FlipKart. Slowly competition came up, and today, India is a mature market for e-Commerse. One company gave opportunity to many others – Amazon, Urban Ladder, PepperFry, Big Basket are just to name a few who are delivering anything and everything to the Indian consumer.

HealthCare is also opening up. With the painstaking effort’s of startup’s like Practo HealthTech market has opened up. Today, we have more than 200 startup’s focusing in the Healthcare space in various segments – Healthcare e-Commerse, Appointment bookings, Home Care, Searching for Doctors and Hospitals, maintaining Health records, Wellness, Specialized care etc.

In a country like India, opening a market might be easier said than done. What we need to work for is the acceptance of the solution. Breaking the barrier for customers to accept and engage themselves is the key; along with the Government regulations to “enable” the innovation and take it closer to people.

When the Aadhar Card (UID Project) came into existence, it is not made mandatory. Even today it is not, but for most of the important needs – Gas connection, Opening Bank account, applying for Passport etc, if you have an Aadhar Number, it becomes more easier. What happened here? Even though it is not mandatory, organizations have started to embrace this. In the similar way, technology needs to be accepted by hospitals and Doctors. This will pave way for acceptance in using technology in HealthCare.

This is a tough nut to crack. The approach of HealthCare startups has been to provide solutions to customer. When customers start using, Hospitals and Doctors might also start using. This approach will work, but will need commitment to understand the true needs of the customer and doctors to make this work.

A long way to go, but definitely I am being optimistic.