Market and Competitive Assessment for Infrastructure Hardware

Case Study

Challenge


The client was encountering a series of challenges in the infrastructure hardware space and approached IDC for some market intelligence and guidance on recalibrating its annual targets and future plans. The client also wanted to effectively compete in the market and was struggling to understand its competitors' strategies, the reasons for their successes in leveraging partnerships, and the best practices they were deploying around sales and marketing.

The client wanted to re-examine its offerings in line with changing market requirements.  The adoption of emerging technologies such as cloud, big data and analytics, and IoT was reshaping the infrastructure space and the client sought a structured method for understanding the impact this was having on its target markets.

Approach & Methodology


IDC's methodology for this project incorporated the following components:

  • Market Assessment: IDC utililized its existing tracker reports and performed a series of face-to-face interviews with relevant vendors and channel partners.
  • Industry Assessment: IDC conducted meetings with CIOs/IT managers of end-user organizations from five key verticals identified by the client, complementing this with its existing industry knowledge and vertical-based event surveys.
  • End-User Survey: IDC undertook an extensive end-user survey across 120 organizations and subsequently performed an in-depth analysis of the results.
  • Competitive Landscape Review: IDC utilized its relationships across the industry and arranged a series of face-to-face meetings to gather inputs from five of the client's competitiors and their partners.

Key Benefits & Outcomes


IDC's detailed study provided the client with the following:

  • A clear understanding of end-user organizations' technology priorities and investment plans.
  • An end-to-end perspective on the competitive landscape that identified potential gaps for creating an effective go-to-market strategy.
  • Guidance on reshaping its portfolio and business mix to create a stronger focus on critical industries and segments offering substantial opportunities.
  • An effective sales and marketing strategy that took into account the changing competitive landscape.
  • A detailed roadmap drawn up in accordance with local market trends and future forecasts.

Contacts


Sourav Bhanja

Consulting Director, IDC MEA