New Business Launch

False Starts

Most business launches fail for one of two reasons. They don’t realize the true nature of the unmet need or understand what motivates prospects to buy or switch. . They assume that delivering comparable value at lower cost will increase sales. But they don’t fully realize switching costs or other competitive value propositions. The other major failure point is inconsistently applying the “story” across the whole business. This leads to either failing to deliver on key value propositions in an effort to keep cost low or providing customized services undercutting a low cost position.

Tell Your Story From Your Customers’ Perspective

Often an outside perspective is required to hone the core value story – but business owners often are not able to “step outside the company” to be objective and see things from the customer’s perspective. They may also lack the specific experience to distinguish unique value propositions from “cool features.” We help companies hone their stories using our experience, market research and customer analytics. Converting these unique value propositions into your story is critical. Your story is at the core of your marketing and operating strategy.

Pressure Testing Operations

It is critical to build a complete business model starting from an external perspective. We recommend “conference room pilots” where we walk through a day-in-the-life of each customer segment to identify regular service needs and contingencies required to deliver the value proposition. From this external perspective, we can determine the resources and processes required in the business model. We then review the completed business model to determine if each process, from customer acquisition to customer service, are funded and enabled to deliver the story consistently to core segments.

Case Study:

Our client has unique assets in its access to automotive transaction data, as well as data aggregation and interpretation skills. Historically, the client focused on serving OEMs and was looking to create new products to serve dealers. Empiritas worked with the client to refine their initial concepts into a series of dealer-facing products that will fill the dealer solutions whitespaces with their unique value proposition. The work included product design, business model construction and go-to-market strategy. Collectively, we identified two unique features, the client alone can deliver. We also identified two different viable market entry strategies to be piloted.