INSIGHTS
It is increasingly difficult to steer a profitable course as market trends threaten operations, innovation-driven disruptions sweep the market and regulatory and compliance requirements soar. This environment has driven the need for rapid, accurate insights into strategy, marketing, innovation efforts and more.
As the CEO of Soparfilm Energy and Spark Partners and former Chairman of Apex Interactive along with several other board positions, Adam has a clear understanding of the demands CEOs, and executive management face in a rapidly changing business environment.
Whether an organization is for-profit or non-profit, they all face market shifts. Adam’s experience and expertise will provide insights to highlight opportunities and threats to your business. These results will show your Board and leadership team how to benefit from long-term relationship planning, changing competition and evolving customer needs. Adam executes and achieves these results through elements of his market-based program, Managing Status Quo Risk, which can help any business in any industry.
Managing Status Quo Risk is a program Adam developed for NACD (National Association of Corporate Directors) to help boards lower the risk of their companies’ products and services becoming irrelevant. The program was implemented with NACD members with great success, for which Adam was named an NACD Fellow. Adam offers to implement elements of this program to any company through two different market-facing options with fees starting at $4,000.
INSIGHT OVERVIEW
The Independent Insight is where we look at your company as outsiders, through the lens of its target and potential markets, to evaluate trends, review competitive direction and look for insights into changing consumer needs.
We view your company and industry as outsiders. We look at big trends that will impact your business. The Spark Partners team searches for the most important trends with the highest impact potential. We combine those trends into scenarios that are most likely and can have a measurable impact within a decade. (For a deeper view on trends, we offer our Assessment
We don’t have company or industry blinders, so we seek insights on trend impacts without a vested interest in the operational status quo, in your R&D efforts, product development, or traditional distribution, etc.
THREAT INSIGHTS
The Independent Threat Insight is where we identify and profile the major market threats to your business model. Most often negative trends lead to a decline in level and quality of consumer demand which can increase the velocity of the impact on a business. Our scan can find those fads disguised as trends that you can ignore.
STRATEGY INSIGHTS
The Independent Strategy Insight is where we look at your company’s objectives, strategic alternatives and go-to-market plans as an outsider. Our team will evaluate market trends and look for insights into changing consumer needs as well as channel directions.
For example, an ornamental garden company going direct to end consumers for their seeds and growing products rather than selling through big box hardware and supermarket chains (at low margin). Or, think about helping a “sign producer” to see their role is “motivating people to action” so identifying all kinds of businesses they could move into that would help current customers achieve customer “motivation” besides just making and installing signs.
Our experience and techniques allow us to look beyond the confines of how companies often define their business to look for deeper value and greater opportunities based on trends.
Schedule a time to talk with Adam to help your business identify opportunities for growth.
MARKETING INSIGHT
The Independent Marketing Insight is where we look at your company’s marketing plans and its markets as an outsider, evaluate trends, and look for insights into growth. For example, an ornamental garden company going direct to end consumers for their seeds and growing products rather than selling through big box hardware and supermarket chains (at low margin). Or, think about helping a “sign producer” to see their role is “motivating people to action” so identifying all kinds of businesses they could move into that would help current customers achieve customer “motivation” besides just making and installing signs. We can look beyond the confines of how companies often define their business to look for deeper value and greater opportunities based on trends.
Schedule a time to talk with Adam to help your business identify opportunities for growth.
INNOVATION INSIGHT
The Independent Innovation Insight is where we look at your company’s new product plans, intellectual property and innovation in its markets as an outsider. The Spark Partners team will evaluate market trends, review supplier product directions and look for insights into changing consumer needs. We can look beyond the confines of how companies often define their business to look for deeper value and greater opportunities based on those trends.
Schedule a time to talk with Adam to help your business identify opportunities for growth.
INSIGHT PROJECT LEVELS
Level 1 – We do this work via phone and working in our office. We prepare a report based on additional market and industry information and review it with you via phone or Zoom conference. No travel. No expenses. Just the fixed price of the report.
Level 2 – We can come to your office for a day, meet with execs 1-on-1 to get personal input on the company and industry. We then prepare a report in our offices and send it to you with a follow-up call or Zoom conference.
Level 3 – We come to your office and interview your staff. We prepare the report. We then visit your offices and conduct a 2-4 hour meeting processing the results of our analysis, discussing probabilities, and forecasting timing.
MARKET SENSING
To complement the trend-based Insights and to build trend monitoring skills into your strategy, we can help your team develop and implement a Market Sensing Plan which is a facilitated management assessment of strategic threats and opportunities. These external components of “SWOT” will provide ongoing direction to Strategy, Marketing and Innovation Insight work.
This system will allow you to more efficiently keep an eye on key future trends in your business environment, sensing 360 degrees from suppliers to competitors to customers. You will avoid the crisis of data gathering when a threat becomes evident or the analytics chaos that results when presented with multiple opportunities for future growth with limited resources.
We’ll help develop the sensing system, the information to monitor and key metrics that would trigger successful action. You’ll be confident that your next strategic move will be the right one.
SENSING SYSTEM LEVELS
Level 1 is half-day where we overview your website, industry, and prepare a half day on-site workshop, primarily focused on trend analysis to help you build initial scenario(s).
Level 2 is a full day where we overview your website, industry and prepare a full day on—site workshop focused on trend analysis, threat impact assessment of trends, scenario development and opportunity assessment based on threats and scenarios.
Level 3 is a full day workshop, but prior to the meeting we fly to your location and interview top level execs. We also interview a select group of customers and suppliers. we overview your website, industry and prepare a full day on—site workshop focused on trend analysis, threat impact assessment of trends, scenario development and opportunity assessment based on threats and scenarios. Obviously, the more we know the more we can focus the workshop and better the outcomes quality.
Level 4 is a full day workshop followed up with a recommendation for a market sensing program to help you push the opportunities forward by collecting and using external data in the planning and reporting process.
Level 5 includes all of Level 4 plus we create a primary strategy for your organization including Value Proposition, Values, Mission and Vision statements, and develop a communications overview that “tells your story” in a powerful way for all your constituencies (employees, management, community, customers, suppliers, bankers, investors.)
Schedule a time to talk with Adam
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