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Growth Platform Development

Finding the white space

Challenge

The top brand of this leading building products company, distributed through a major home improvement retailer, was the consumers’ choice in the do-it-yourself market. But its presence created channel and brand conflicts, cluttering any clear pathway to win by deploying traditional industry business models. To make matters more complicated, competition was firmly entrenched in the professional market. How could the firm win among B2B consumers?

Approach

With limited insight and neither a segmentation model nor prime target on the client’s part, Motiv sought to understand the ecosystem of the professional paint market, discover its service gaps and unmet needs, and identify levers around which a new business model could be built. Using ethnographic methods, a ﬁrst round of research revealed a segmentation model that suggested two high-volume professional paint business targets. A second round of research delved deeper into the targets’ unmet needs, which surprisingly, had little to do with acquiring paint. The identiﬁed need states informed rigorous business analysis of companies and business models solving these same problems in analogous situations. Both operating and ﬁnancial structures of numerous relevant companies were closely examined to understand margins, growth rates, complexity, and key drivers. Combining the unmet needs states from our primary research with focused business analytics led to the conceptualization of numerous business models that were subsequently tested and reﬁned with the target professional painters.

Results

Motiv identiﬁed both primary and secondary target market segments that met our client’s growth goals and focused strategy development efforts. At the holding company level, corporate assets and capabilities that could be brought to bear in supporting the new business model were codiﬁed and leadership was enrolled in the effort. A road map for market entry for the winning breakthrough concept was created based on desirable demographics for both professional painters and the services created to support them. A program for high volume distribution was begun that currently serves as the centerpiece of the program. Volume and sales significantly increased for this segment of the client’s business.

Case Studies

Becoming More Innovative	Creating Citizen-Centered Experiences
Getting Design to Thrive	Improving the Grantee Experience
Finding the White Space	Building an Innovative Pipeline
Mastering a New Market Segment	Aligning for Success