Biotech Tools

A detailed competitor and market assessment was performed for a well-known equipment vendor in the biotech industry.  As the dominant leader in its market, the firm needed a growth strategy to satisfy current investors.  Its product line had matured with few new innovations on the horizon.  After evaluating different customer segments in this market, unique strategies were developed for each customer segment.  The expected return on investment was determined for each proposed segment strategy.  Each segment strategy was then examined, analyzing the expected responses from key competitors using game theory analysis.  From this competitive analysis and the expected return on investments, final recommendations were developed to enhance the firm's brand image, to realign product pricing, to maximize revenues, to target specific product improvements that meet customer needs, and to deepen the relationship with the firm's customers using an e-commerce tool. 

For this US-based clothing retailer, a project was conducted to determine the optimum price for their men's tie collection.  Prior to the project, the firm had no logical approach to pricing ties.  For this retailer, a market research survey was performed to understand purchasing and end-use needs from their customers.  A competitive analysis was conducted to determine their brand value versus select competition.  Using a forced-choice pricing survey, participants were asked to value ties from different brands in the survey.  The data from the competitive analysis provided the retailer with an indication of the value their brand brought to their tie collection.  A recommendation was then made to examine different pricing tiers based on the brand survey.  An in-store pricing test was conducted to assess the impact of associated pricing increases.  From these data, we determined that the retailer could increase its revenues with a tiered pricing structure, increasing its revenues by 7% within a month. 

Biofuels Refinery

For a biodiesel start-up with a novel refining technology, a business strategy was developed to help the firm compete effectively in the marketplace.  The firm's technology has the potential of dramatically lowering the cost of biodiesel production relative to existing biodiesel producers.  To confirm this, a market research effort was performed to determine the fixed costs, variable costs, total operating costs, and capital investment required for existing biodiesel producers.  Significant effort was placed on understanding feedstock and biodiesel market prices.  Financials for the start-up were generated and compared against these market parameters.  Through this competitive financial assessment, new financial goals were developed for the start-up which, if achieved, would make the start-up an investable venture.