What are the trends across the industry in which your market is set? What are the key threats and opportunities within your industry today, and how are these like to evolve over the coming years?

What about competitors: those you have, and those who are likely to emerge? Who are the key suppliers within your market, particularly those whose businesses are robust and therefore more reliable; those who have particular strengths that could be helpful to your business?

Also important are those competitors and suppliers within markets you may have targeted for growth. Where are those competitors vulnerable? Where might those suppliers be looking for possible alliances?

Where it all begins and endsis with clients and customers. Where were you most successful in getting those you already have? What is your best strategy for keeping them and, where possible, growing your business with them – either directly or via referrals through them to new customers?

With those all-important new customers, who are they? Where are they? What needs to be done to acquire them, engage them, and exceed their expectations? What is it about your business that impresses them, and what can be done to develop this perception?

Market research is incomplete without a clear picture of you and your business in your evolving market. How can you, your team, your purchasing and processes, your products or services, and critically, your marketing – how can all of these become more efficient and cost-effective; and finally, more efficient and profitable?

Just as market research is about more than knowing who and where your customers are, CHITS in partnership with your business is concerned with more than marketing as mere promotion. Together, we research the market in the widest sense, and use the acquired intelligence to build brands and enable enterprises that thrive over time.