Our client was a longstanding market share leader with one of the highest brand recognition rates in their industry, but growth opportunities in their core markets were increasingly hard to identify. The company had responded to this challenge with a variety of channel-development initiatives, which ultimately led to enormous channel complexity. In particular, the company, its channel members, and its end-users were struggling with a variety of issues related to pricing and discounting. Our client wanted to know the overall importance of pricing and the impact their discounting policies were having on their position as the share and brand leader.
In order to support our client’s goal, we identified a new channel partner classification scheme to map and profile the channel ecosystem. We surveyed partners in each of the newly defined channel categories to identify their current and future needs and interviewed leaders in parallel markets to learn from their experiences. This approach helped the client to more clearly:
Define channel partner brand, pricing and discounting preferences
Identify the changing demographics of current and potential channel partners
The client was able to re-assert their premium brand positioning by executing a number of strategy and policy changes in close succession. The client also increased their share in a number of emerging markets through a more focused approach to targeting, recruiting, training and retaining channel partners.