Distributor / Channel Partner Selection & Competitor / Partner Profiling

Detailed information on competitors and channel partners is important when making strategic and tactical decisions. Uncovering that information can be a very data-intensive exercise and requires deep understanding of any given vertical.

How can IE Market Research Corp. help?

Our broad and deep knowledge of the telecommunications, healthcare/biotech IT, financial services IT, and government markets adds considerable value to our client's in-house analyst teams doing competitive and strategic channel assessments. IEMR's access to a wider range of databases and research collateral and our deep expertise will move any distributor and channel partner selection exercise much further and faster than what can be accomplished in-house by our clients.

Case Study

Our Client, one of the world's leading computer manufacturers wanted to undertake an assessment of its competitors' global investment locations and provide advice on its global location strategy. The Client wanted to create a database of the location of each of its competitors' facility, estimated headcount at each facility, estimated headcount by functional group, locations and sizes of major contract (ODM/EMS) suppliers, and relationships among facilities such as identifying regional/national HQs and/or flagship facilities. This database would be used to provide a detailed assessment of the Top-5 computer manufacturers in the world and the key strategic trends in production patterns in this industry.

How IE Market Research Corp. helped?

We adopted a two-pronged research methodology for this project. We conducted secondary research based on a comprehensive search of online databases available to IEMR. These included EBSCO’s Business Source Corporate (22,500 full-text publications, 3,000 full-text magazines & journals, etc.), OneSource Global Express (thousands of full-text news sources with particular emphasis on international sources), Bureau van Dijk (credit information to give us a sense of transaction values which we could use in our estimates), the Financial Times’ fDiIntelligence offering (which provides reports on over 20,000 companies profiling their global investment activity), SEC filings of our client's competitors, their global job boards, and annual/quarterly reports.

Our database research helped us fulfill most of the primary and secondary data objectives for this project. For getting employment at various facilities by functional group, we conducted primary research where we created an on-line survey targeting current employees at competitor firms. This survey was designed to get the estimated proportion of headcount at various types of facilities by functional group, including: Management; Sales / Sales support; R&D; Manufacturing; Call Center, IT, Finance, Marketing; and Logistics & Distribution Services.

Based on the above database, IEMR created strategy presentations for the client which formed the basis for internal strategy discussions at the board level.