What is the most crucial element in your agenda to grow profits, sales and market share in the next three years? Shining’s
core is to diagnose the mindshare of your
end-customers so they decisively and repeatedly buy your product or service
to grow and sustain your business, either
B2B or B2C. You will find 90 percent of
your business objective achieved once
you’ve captured your end-customers’
mind share.
Our alignment to the
client’s business culture
Every enterprise has its own business climate and
corporate culture. We are very sensitive to align our consulting practice to our client’s operational system
and accustom ourselves to it from the start of the project.
In fact, we spend time analyzing and understanding a
new client’s business culture even before the first meeting.
Every geographical sphere has its own socio-cultural and economic trends. Our consulting process is totally aligned
to the geography our client operates in. With mutual understanding, we have already delivered transformation
in our client enterprises, either in a mild way or with
strong disruption, by portraying the facts when its
absolute necessity was realized.
Tic-tac-toe, your business solution
The tic-tac-toe win assurance we give our clients to
navigate the open uncontrollable environment. What is
the open uncontrollable environment? The end-customer, talent pool, vendor, share-holder, community and competition are all part of the uncontrollable open environment.
Clients come to us for a solution. We take them through
the tic-tac-toe trajectory of the uncontrollable open environment where their unpredictable end-customers
and aggressive competitors reside. Our purpose is to
ensure they win the battle of surpassing their business objective.
An initiative to navigate the open uncontrollable environment
Every enterprise works in its own closed environment. But business growth in terms of market share, sales and profit are dependant on happenings in the open environment that you have no control over.
The impact of the open, uncontrollable environment touches your enterprise strategy, its vision, goal, stability, human capital and innovation.
You may have state-of-art discipline to filter out deficiencies and control your closed environment.
But this discipline needs a process to filter the unstructured open environment. Without that, your business will remain antiseptic and not connect to market reality.
In our 4 services, we have devised an initiative to effectively manage and navigate through the uncontrollable environment in all our deliverables.
The open uncontrollable environment is a global phenomenon. India has an additional dimension, that of unpredictability.
We address the predictable and unpredictable societies differently
There’s a paradox between the billion populated
multi-cultural India and the million populated Western developed countries. The way of life in the West is
highly predictable; theirs is an unidirectional society.
The livelihood, lifestyle, cultural and religious aspects of people in the West have a similar rhythm, unlike India
where everything is unpredictable.
India has a haphazard-directional society where the livelihood, lifestyle, cultural and religious aspects vary
from region to region. So a business strategy meant to operate in India’s unstructured open environment needs
to also address the complexity of its unpredictable society which gets impacted by 3 trends emanating from society, technology and unrelated industries. From our 27 years of global experience we are very alert about the country where you operate and its extreme requirement for localization.
Our core is to diagnose the mindshare of your end-customers so they decisively
and repeatedly buy your product or service to grow and sustain your business,
either B2B or B2C
a. We define your focused end-customer
b. We help you to bring excellence in the delivery execution of your
product and service to your end-customers for their decisive and
repeat purchase that sustains
When end customers say, "I believe in it," it’s a huge acceptance of a product or service. It means the trust and loyalty factor has entered their heads and mind.
When end customers say, "It works well," it means the experiential aspect of the product or service functionality
is highly customized for them. Its obvious the regular usage habit will follow.
When end customers say, "It looks good," it signifies their implicit acceptance of the combined quality and functionality of the product or service, and not the mere appreciation of its superficial look.
The well balanced combination of these 3 attributes leads to the end-customers’ decisive repeat purchase of the product or service in a regular sustaining basis.
The way we look at B2B and B2C business
B2B industry:
A selling proposition in B2B business is essentially one-to-one relationship driven. High soft skill supported by
high quality professional expertise is required for delivery, but this should start right from product concept, to sales, marketing, PR, customer relationship management
As every aspect of B2B business is relationship centric, a high consultative approach is required at every
customer touch point. Exceptional knowledge of the industry in the client’s business area is crucial for the
B2B business selling proposition.
The 5 critical areas to make any B2B business selling proposition are knowledge of the client’s geography,
region, industry and corporate climate together with understanding the person in the enterprise you are
about to meet.
Shining Consulting’s edge in the last 27 years has been to consult with B2B clients to strategize their business,
help make their selling proposition robust so they win business that becomes sticky.
B2C industry:
A selling proposition in B2C business is essentially to understand and interpret socio cultural trends in society, generation dynamics, the competitive environment, the context of people’s lifestyle and living situation, their
socio behavioral aspect and psychographics.
When outside-in approach is used in product or service innovation, the selling proposition gets tremendous
power to result in financial success. So the selling proposition of a product or service concept, the distribution network, and communication around the end customer can together create the difference.
Shining Consulting’s edge in the last 27 years has been to consult with B2C clients to strategize their business,
help make their selling proposition robust so they win the consumers repeat purchase.
To own the end-customer’s mindshare for decisive repeat purchase, a product or service must have the scientific blend of tangible quality (which is perceived by end-customers as intangible quality because its often not visible), functionality and likeability factors.
The right blend makes the product or service of any industry aspirational at any price point. This is the sustaining connect of a product or service to your end-customers.
This aspirational, emotional attachment to a product or service can become so strong not only your end-customer’s sustainability they communicate in the society with social networking about the excellence of your product or service.
This buy-in is the Emotional Surplus that means emotion with substance which grows and grows in end-customer mind and create market legacy.
An outline of the process that keeps your end-customer as
the
central focus
"I believe in it" is the rational factor. Like the suspension of a vehicle, it is not visible on its display or during usage. "It works well" is the functional, experiential factor, which in a vehicle is the steering, gears and drive of a vehicle. "It looks good" is the emotional factor, which is the styling of the vehicle.
When these 3 attributes are balanced and delivered seamlessly to the end customer in a systematic way, a
product’s purchase happens and repurchase becomes consistent. This is the way to create sustaining last mile connect to the end customer.
Segregation of Rational, Functional and
Emotive factor of the fundamental
attributes in 3 industries
We have coined ReFinE as a name for the 3 fundamental Rational, Functional and Emotive attributes that balance and scale a product
or service.
Every product or service delivery inevitably has a combination of 3 factors: the Rational factor is
non-visible, the Functional factor is experiential while
the Emotive factor is sensitive touch and feel.
Benchmarking with these factors comprises the ReFinE process that evaluates where your product and service stands in the market and where you need to take it.
Benchmarking is done with 4 competitive layers that exists in every business: the Generic, Good, Superior and Unbeatable competitors. Mining end-customer insights in an unbiased manner, the total ReFinE score is 27 points,
with the Rational, Functional and Emotive factors having 9 points each.
ReFinE is used to evaluate and measure Human Resources quality as well. Intellectual acumen is the Rational
factor; delivery capability is Functional; with leadership and team work bring the Emotive factor.
To extract strategic insights for your business, we diagnose
3 trends, societal trend, technology trend and trends unrelated
to your business
Societal trend: This multi energy molecule drives the economy.
It is
very
difficult to intercept all its atoms. Your stakeholders
reside in this open environment.
Trends unrelated to your business. Todays diverse market offerings are giving immense choice to consumers. They enjoy picking up products
and services hitherto
not considered for
purchase.
Consequently they
have become extremely critical decision makers.
Technology trend: Rapid change in
technology trends has cut short the
perceived value of products and services
as new versions or items appear in
the market at very short intervals.
This entices stakeholders to become frivolous and greedy for the new which they also very quickly tire of.
Gunender Kapur, President & CEO,
Reliance Retail. Previously Executive
Director, HUL
Prince Augustin, Sr. VP Human Capital, Mahindra Auto Sector
Areas of B2C business we research to extract the new
At the Apple store in Soho, New York, we study
how the three generations get involved with
digital technology
We observe how even a woman who carries
a Louis Vuitton bag interacts in Apple’s
5th Avenue,
New York store
Interacting with the children at a school gate in Germany to understand their trendy desire
We even spend time in entertainment areas to evaluate behaviour of
the three generations
Satchidananda observing rural India
With housewives
With youth
Top management in rural consumer research
Shining’s 4 services, Performing Biz Identity, ID Product Design, Branding and Retailing ROI are all
driven through our
27-year-old patented P&P
Research. The first‘P’ stands for perception and the second ‘P’ for potential value that respondents gauge and give insights on during research.
This research process is unique and totally crafted according to the future emerging substance of different industries so to
make your organizational approach outside-in. It encompasses sychographics, the trend, economic and cultural nuances of society, from global to local.
We observe shopper behaviour inside
Singapore mall
We audit the retail to measure visibility, proximity and availability of the brand for
FMCG category
We audit the retail to measure visibility, proximity and availability of consumer
electronic brands.
These are the 6 factors we take into account while working
for B2B business
Shining’s nine-step quality process,
a working discipline to deliver extra
benefit to clients from strategy
to activation
Exploration: Painstaking in-depth research
insights drive clarity of objective in every project.
Orientation: To make the project output
predictable while maximizing intellectual assets
for its strategic leap.
Convergence: To deliver measurable extra benefit
to clients, from strategy to activation, in every aspect
of the project’s process and design so the outcome becomes qualitatively perceptible and differentiating
for end-customers.
Strategic planning team: Project centric - Qualitative research and insight
of client’s internal and external environment.
Vertical mining - Qualitative and quantitative research insight of different verticals of industry.
Project management team: Responsible for cross activities among client,
Shining strategic planning and Creative team.
Client interface and controlling expense.
Creative team: ID Product Design, Graphic design, Web
design, Retail architectural design, Prints and collateral design. Driven by strategic planning
team and working in collaboration with project management team.
New business development team: Works in collaboration with project centric and vertical mining research team for marketing of
new business development of Shining.
Human Capital & Admin: Highly sensitive to 4 services requirement
along with our client’s relationship facilitation.
Committed project time
Being meticulous about our client’s time to market, we are agile in time management
in every project. With deep analysis, we fit with the client’s business planning in the
5 parameters below, and never compromise with quality of deliverables and the
committed timeline.
Scope
Time
Action
Deliverables
Cost
The scope of
work very clearly defines all the required steps
to achieve
the objective determined with the client
To make the agenda very clear, the time required from the client, any third party or by Shining is charted out for every step of the project
All action areas following from the scope and time are transparently explained
Our deliverables can be
segregated into
2 layers:
-
The intangible layer consists
of the
thought process for
the strategy, vision
and goal
-
The tangible layer consists
of the execution and activation elements
Costs are transparently estimated from the start together with scope, time, action
and deliverables:
-
Shining’s fixed professional consulting fees
for the project
-
Out-of-pocket expenses for research material, travel, board and miscellaneous, on actuals
-
A ball park figure
for the client’s activation expenses which is totally at
the client’s discretion
We have a very consultative approach with our clients on a regular
basis to share our best practices to help them to shape their
business strategy
Co-creation workshops with clients
Research field work with Shining strategy
planning team
