When working on their strategies, GJC like to encourage business owners to conduct a gap analysis, or as referred to by GJC, a ‘Client Needs Analysis’. This exercise helps to drill down into the detail and discover the difference between where a business is and where it could be; but not ‘where it wants to be.’ All business owners would like to be earning millions of pounds of profit and churning out products which fly off the shelves, but this analysis should be based on reality.
For a needs analysis to be useful, it should to make use of benchmarking, that is identifying industry best practice, looking at existing market share and the growth potential for the business.
There are several different perspectives a business can take when conducting their needs analysis, a high-level view of business direction could be considered, or a more specific focus could be studied. Consideration of the usage gap which exists between current and potential market share could be given, this gap is, of course, identical to competitors’ market share.
A review of the product gap might also be made, this being caused by market separations and product placement. For example, a company making men’s shoes will have a product gap comprising of roughly 50% of the market. Analysing product gaps can immediately highlight areas where you can take action, for example start making women’s shoes!
A benchmarking exercise enables a business to look at the processes and outputs of other industry players and assess whether they those processes are worth adopting. Some systems might be cost-effective to implement whilst others might be currently unrealistic for reasons such as limited resources, for example. This is where GJC’s process mapping and systemisation specialist has a powerful effect on our clients. With extensive knowledge and experience of optimising systems, she can work with an operations team and quickly bring them into alignment with industry best practice.
If you need help completing your Needs Analysis, process mapping or any other area of business strategy or optimisation, please get in touch!
