Client Profile.
The client is a Netherlands-based firm offering digitalization solutions to real estate data management companies, housing corporations, city municipalities, and housing owners. It offers digital twin solutions to extract intelligent insights for construction project management in social housing sectors.
Business Need.
The client used 3rd party 3D viewer services for a 360 degree view of several 1000s of houses owned by affordable housing corporations and allotted to civilians of Netherlands. The viewer enabled asset monitoring for public housing, maintenance, housing type etc. by displaying property details in 3D as against spreadsheets. The viewer helped the client to drill down to the view needed, whether it was of the entire property, a particular room, or floor-wise.
To be a market differentiator and to be able to offer enhanced services to their customers, our client wanted to develop their own 3D viewer with multiple advanced features. Thus, they partnered with HitechDigital to gather competitor product intelligence from multiple sources which would include features, specifications, pricing, performance, customer reviews, etc. The insights would be utilized to design and develop their own product with competitive features and USPs of its own.
Challenges.
As the viewer had a very niche segment in social housing industry, the competitor intelligence team was faced with challenges such as:
- In-depth knowledge of housing data management products and bylaws of Netherlands to compare each product based on its unique features and capabilities;
- Getting together a competitor pool which provided similar services, given that, most competitors on our radar used viewers with single building view against client benchmark product of a viewer which could give a view of thousands of buildings.
- Inputs and intelligence on the features gathered from web research and analysis of competitors were not comprehensive. It did not give a complete, drill down view of feature and product performance.
- Language constraints were faced since most companies spoke in native languages including Dutch, French etc.
- Strong analytical skills to weigh value for money for each product.
Solution.
- Prepared a strategic development plan for a 3D viewer prototype to help client formulate their own product. The plan presented in a well-structured format was based on:
- Competitive product research to weigh and compare features, capabilities, user reviews and value for money of various viewers against one another.
- Comprehensive insights on leading products through an extended search beyond Netherlands including USA, UK, and other European countries.
Approach.
- A team of technical experts with a background in Architecture was formed to prepare a technical as-is assessment document of current features, their strengths, and limitations.
- An exhaustive list of the features and functionalities of existing product and a wish list of desired functionalities was shared by the client.
- Gathering marketing intelligence on competitors’ products:Â
- The research team acquired understanding of the current business scenarios for building configurator, creating market planning scenarios and strategic approach plan.
- Possibilities of tie-ups with other market leaders of similar products were looked into during the research stage.
- Research experts, owing to their extensive experience in architecture domain, compiled the competitive research report using secondary online sources of 15 different market leading 3D viewers offering relevant features.
- To get the comprehensive idea of the features listed on competitors’ websites, the project team had telephonic conversation and emails with the company executives.
- As the team had extended their research to various geographies, resources with native language fluency including Dutch, French etc. were hired on contracts for seamless communication with local sales representatives.
- The exhaustive research report was documented in Excel spreadsheet to map each product against its features and functionalities [existing and future launch] by assigning weightage to each feature and be able to draw comparison.
- Quality check of the report:
- A senior QC person validated the research report against the inputs from client for existing and wish list of features and functionalities.
- Reports and dashboards prepared through web research were validated for their authenticity against the market users’ reviews available on open web sources.
- A detailed comparative report, with duly checked quality and accuracy was shipped to the client
- Suggestions for the most viable product design based on cost structure and service offerings were shared with the client based on the reports Â
Business Impact.
Create unique product differentiator
Insights into competitive landscape
Clear product feature segmentation for bare minimum needs, regular usage, and premium category
Multiple pricing models based on views, users etc.
