NEWS RELEASE                                                                                         August 2018

CFT Market Research in the Post Digital Era

Combust, Flow, and Treat (CFT) market research has changed dramatically in the digital era. It promises to change even more in the post digital era when it will be the foundation of CFT business programs.

Greg Satell (writing last month in the Harvard Business Review) predicts the end of the Digital Era. The advances in digital technologies are slowing and the post digital era will rely on many of the digital era advances to achieve progress. Greg states “While there is limited new value to be gleaned from things like word processors and smartphone apps, there is tremendous value to be unlocked in applying digital technology to fields like genomics and materials science to power traditional industries like manufacturing, energy, and medicine. Essentially, the challenge ahead is to learn how to use bits to drive atoms.”

The challenge in CFT market research is to make it the foundation of a business program and not just a peripheral tool. The solution (like bits to atoms) is bits to action plans. McIlvaine has coined the term “ the Industrial Internet of Wisdom”. IIoW will empower IIoT and provide meaning to the bits for the purpose of actionable market insights and technical innovation. It should be noted that the two efforts are connected. In the IIoW era innovation will accelerate and the CFT companies with the most innovative technologies and business approaches will have unprecedented success.

For market research to be the foundation of a business program it needs to ultimately address two questions about individual prospects.

First Fundamental Sales Question: Why would this customer buy your product for

  • a specific application
  • in a specific process
  • in a specific industry

Possible answers

  • lowest initial price
  • lowest total cost of ownership
  • better delivery time
  • salesmanship or connections
  • convenience

Second Fundamental Sales Question:Is this customer worth pursuing due to

  • the size of his potential purchase
  • the size of the market for similar customers
  • the ability to cost effectively make the sale

If market research can deliver these answers for every prospect then it will become the foundation of a business program. The resources which McIlvaine is applying to supply these answers are

  • the evaluation of 100,000 CFT purchasers with databases and project tracking
  • Decision Systems relative to applications, processes and industries to provide interconnection of people and knowledge
  • segmentation of markets by Total Available Market (TAM), Serviceable Available Market (SAM), Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) and Wisdom based Market (WOM)
  • Continuous updating of millions of forecasts
  • Intra company IIoW programs

McIlvaine has the reports with the TAM Markets. It has the plant information and project databases Databases, the Decision Systems Decisions and consulting support to provide the business program. You can see details if you Click Here