Market access is the goal for any new or growing venture. But how do you expand efficiently and successfully, especially if the goal is International?
Here are the steps AgriThority® market development experts deploy when working with clients to expand their market access across the crop production regions of six continents.
- Define and quantify the needs your product fills. Who needs your product benefits, where do they buy and why? This market analysis starts with product, moves to competition and price comparison, selection of distribution partners and launch methods. These critical components of a successful plan must be defined accurately with thorough evaluation of the opportunities and risks.
Consider all the sources of information about your target customers; their needs, their current practices, their supplier relationships and their capacity to buy. Existing market research and surveys help establish an in-depth understanding of growth rates, forecasted demand, competitors and barriers to entry. This is especially important when entering an undefined market with a novel technology.
Answering critical questions begins the prioritization process:
Does the product benefit and calculated value justify the purchase or their risk of trying a new technology or practice? What are the current practices you will attempt to displace? Prioritize the potential markets by customer value, not by pure volume opportunity.
2. Confirm requirements of each considered market. What is the regulatory process and resources required from importation to production and logistics? These costs are measured in both monetary and time commitments. With new technologies such as biologicals, country requirements will vary. From importation to registration and data requirements, these variables are critical to detail and document for accurate planning. Questions to answer include: What are the internal capabilities? How much infrastructure, sales capacity, and core competencies can be applied to expansion markets?
3. Prioritize optional target markets. External and internal analysis then leads to defining go-to-market approaches. Where is the best fit for the products where needs exist? How well can the internal organization service these needs? What are the gaps in each target market that you can fill? What is the value of filling the needs and will customers pay the price required?
4. Develop Market Entry plan. Build, buy or partner are three common methods of market entry. Opportunities for each of these approaches will vary from market to market depending on the novelty of your product, existing competition, and standard practices, especially if key growth targets are international. What are the internal capabilities and resources required for each option? What is the estimated time to market entry, and can you sustain the effort to reach the growth trajectory? The business and investment case with an execution plan should include who needs to do what, when and how often are key milestones established?
5. Execute, execute, execute. This final step is never complete. The options and assumptions around costs, risks, and predictability will constantly evolve. Many factors outside of your control must be monitored and considered as each milestone is assessed. Mitigating risk of market entry begins with facts and stats, not hopes and promises.
When your agricultural technology is moving from Research to Development or into new markets, AgriThority has the technical, market, and business expertise to supplement or expand your internal capabilities.
With 35+ Internationally recognized leaders connected to more than 300 local specialists in a worldwide network, we bring deep experience testing more than 170 new technologies across 1500+ field trial locations for 180+ multi-national, mid-size and start-up companies.
Wherever you want to explore, we are your native guides.
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