Market Information — Customers/Market. Profile — Image Analysis
Category: Marketing
A company’s profile means the picture that the company wants or believes the market (such as customers or potential customers) to have of the company. This picture will rarely be identical to the company’s image. Image means the picture that the market (including competitors) has formed of the company.
Profile = the picture that the company wants or believes the market to have of the company
Image = the picture that the market has formed of the company
Differences in the company’s profile and image may cause the company to make wrong decisions or omit making decisions which could strengthen its future competitiveness. It is, therefore, decisive that internally in the company there is the same view of the company’s profile and image; and that the company has a realistic picture of its image compared with its main competitors.
For this purpose, the profile/image analysis has been developed to identify the company’s market position in a qualitative way. The profile/image analysis makes it possible to identify:
how the market weighs up the importance of different action parameters (product characteristics, competitive parameters) to their choice of product/supplier;
how the market evaluates the performance of the company and, say, two competitors against the action parameters in question;
whether the management group have the same evaluation on the importance of the different action parameters as well as on the evaluation of the performance of the company against the parameters in question;
whether the company’s evaluation of their and their competitors’ parameter performance conforms with that of the market; that is whether there is conformity between the company’s profile and image.
The profile/image analysis may, thus, comprise an external as well as an internal analysis.
External Profiling — Analysis. The purpose of the external profiling is to identify whether the company is in touch with the market requests and demands. The profile/image analysis is based on postal interviews and/or telephone interviews. In order to obtain an acceptable percentage of replies, it is essential that the respondent is ensured full anonymity which is why the final selection of respondents should be made by an impartial agency, and the reply of the individual respondent must be confidential and not passed on to the company.
Internal Profiling — Analysis. The purpose of the internal profiling is to identify whether the company’s view of itself and its competitors is in keeping with the view of the surrounding world. The analysis further enables the company to establish whether the management group agree on the company’s profiling and image.
The profiling is based on the same frame of questioning as the external analysis. It is made in the form of questionnaires and is anonymous.
Gap Analysis. There may be difference between the company’s priorities and evaluation of the parameter performance in one or more of the following situations:
The customers evaluate the parameter performance of the competitors higher/lower than that of the company;
The customers’evaluation of the importance of a parameter differs from that of the company;
The company’s (the management group’s) evaluation of its performance differs very much from that of the customers, irrespective of level.
The following are examples of external and internal profile analyses and thus the gap analysis.