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Home and Building Materials

Helping building & home material clients through our strong on-ground research capabilities and industry knowledge to make well-informed business decisions and win in a competitive market

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What We Do

Category assessment
Category trends
Sector scan
Consumer NPS & loyalty
Voice of consumer
Consumer purchase journey
Shopping decision tree
Consumer segmentation
Need & intent gap analysis
Mystery shopping
Advertising effectiveness
Brand health diagnostic
Employee satisfaction and NPS
Voice of channel
Employee engagement
Go-to-market
Product price benchmarking
Product and concept testing
Sales and distribution benchmarking
Catalog gap assessment
Availability visibility study

Category assessment

What is the total Building & home materials market of India?
What is the demand / market potential for each category?
How does the competitive landscape look like across categories?
Which companies / brands hold the largest share? Which companies are growing fast?
What are the growth drivers / barriers? Any differences across sub-categories?
What are the new emerging categories / sub-categories?

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Category trends

What are the different categories? How have they been growing?
What is the growth outlook for the categories / sub-categories?
How are the consumer needs changing?
How does the economics look like for each category?
Are there global categories in other advanced markets yet to enter India?
Which business models are doing well? Why?

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Sector scan

What is the market attractiveness across sectors – macro-economic indicators, capital markets, unite-economics, etc?
How has the PE / VC interest varied across sectors?
Has the sector created value for stakeholders?
What the growth drivers for the sectors?
What are the leading brands? Are there upcoming brands in the segment?
What are the unique business models in the segment – D2C, etc.?

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Consumer NPS & loyalty

How satisfied is the consumer / contractor?
What is the NPS across leading brands?
What are the drivers of NPS?
What are the common problems and pain points?
What are the unserved / underserved customer / contractor needs?
What are common global best practices that can be implemented to drive customer / contractor experience?

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Voice of consumer

How do the consumers / contractors perceive the company compared to the competition?
What is the value proposition of key players?
What are the top 3 factors consumers / contractors look for while purchasing products?
Is the customer / contractor journey broken? What are the pain points?
What are the things that the brands can improve upon?

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Consumer purchase journey

How does a typical consumer / contractor journey look like?
What are the key purchase criteria? How does it vary across product categories?
What are the pain points at each stage in the purchase journey?
What are the various channels for purchasing - online vs. offline? How does a customer / contractor decide on purchase channel?
What is the impact of offers / discounts on conversion of consumer / contractor?
What is the consumer / contractor satisfaction with redressal services - call / text / email?

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Shopping decision tree

What is the intention or the purchase occasions of the purchase?
What are the factors influencing consumers / contractors to shop from offline vs. online?
What are the key purchase criteria that are responsible to induce repeat purchase?
Is the content promoted by the store relevant to the consumers?
How is the performance of the store-staff compared to the competitors / industry? Does it drive purchase?

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Consumer segmentation

Where are the consumers present across geographies?
What is NCCS profile of the different consumers / contractors?
What are different aspirations of the consumers / contractors?
How is the digital presence of the consumer / contractor – online shopping, subscribed to OTT platforms, usage of payments apps, etc?
What are the major consumer / contractor business models?

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Need & intent gap analysis

Is there are supply-demand mismatch in the market? How big is the opportunity?
What are the underlying reasons for the gap?
Can the players upgrade their offerings to meet the unmet demand / gap in the market? How?
Are there any new entrants in the market that are focussing on these gaps?
Is there a large unorganized market?
What do the global analogues show about fulfilling gaps for the existing players?

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Mystery shopping

What is the customer / contractor journey? How does it vary across player to player?
What are the various industry benchmarks in the process parameters and how does the player rate across them?
How was the customer / contractor experience during the journey? What are the pain points in the journey? Are there any gaps?
What are other key and upcoming players in the industry doing to improve customer / contractor experience?
What is the NPS? What are its drivers?

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Advertising effectiveness

What is the annual advertising spend & ROI? How does it compare to competitors?
What are the advertising channels deployed? Where does it lack compared to industry?
What is the advertising reach across modes and customer / contractor segments? How does it vary across channels / segments?
How does the advertising reach compare with competition? What is the customer / contractor recall?
What is the click-through rate of digital advertising for various products and customer segments? How does it compare with benchmarks?
How does the top of the funnel look like? What is its composition?

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Brand health diagnostic

What is the degree of brand awareness with respect to competitors?
How does brand awareness change with demographics and customer / contractor needs and taste?
What are the key values associated with the brand? What does the brand stand for?
What is the effectiveness of various channels for brand introduction?
How important is brand in the sale process?
What are some of the best practices to strengthen brand value?

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Employee satisfaction and NPS

What is the employee NPS? What are the drivers of NPS?
How satisfied are the employees with the company across different parameters – job satisfaction, career development, etc.?
What are the areas of strength which employees would like the organization to continue and build on?
What are the key improvement areas?
How likely are the employees willing to recommend the organization / restaurant to others?

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Voice of channel

Which brands are channel partners most satisfied with across product categories and why? How is their overall experience?
What are the reasons for preference of a particular brand over others?
What are the channel TATs and process lead times? How do they compare across competitors?
What are the improvement areas across product categories?
What is the level of stickiness across product categories?
What are the triggers that would make channel partners shift to another brand?
What are the key elements to provide a comprehensive channel partner experience?

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Employee engagement

How does the company score across various dimensions of People Value Creation (PVC) framework? How do they stand against similar companies?
What are the current employee engagement levels? How can that be improved?
What has been the trend in employee retention / churn? What are the reasons for them?
What are the employee perceptions of the ethos and values of the organization?
What do the employees have to say about company leadership and where can the leadership improve?

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Go-to-market

What is the potential of the market? What is the projected growth?
What should be your target customer segment? What are their typical personas and preferences?
What is the customer journey for the target customer / contractor? Where is it broken? Where can it be improved?
What is the competitive intensity in the region? What should the communication strategy be to cut through the noise?
How do plan to build brand awareness and generate demand in the target market?
How to develop the value chain necessary to run operations, from supplies to legal permits?

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Product price benchmarking

How should we set the price for the new products / features / value proposition?
For the same products, how does the price stack against the competition?
For the same raw materials, how does the procurement price stack against the competition?
What does the product price – feature look like in the market?
What are the services and features for which customers / contractors are willing to pay more?
How can price be used as a strategy to win market share?

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Product and concept testing

How to do the pilot testing of the product? What should be the target audience? Why?
How to get customer / contractor feedback on proposed new product launches?
What is the ideal methodology for testing new product concepts? What should be the sampling plan?
How to get insights on customer / contractor preferences on the features and overall product concept pre-launch?
What should be key message and tonality while advertising the new product launch?
What is the optimal beta launch design for a proposed product?

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Sales and distribution benchmarking

How does client’s sales organogram compare with that of the competition?
What is the role of the sales and distribution team in the customer journey?
How do customers / contractors rate the sales and service experience as compared to major competitors?
What is the sales team incentive and how does it fare compared to key competitors?
What are the key gaps in sales / distribution strategy across micro & macro markets?
What is the sales force’s effectiveness in terms of standard industry parameters?

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Catalog gap assessment

What are the key gaps in the product catalog across various macro and micro markets / customer segments?
Is the client fulfilling the features and functions as per the customers’ requirements? Are these features and functions working as expected?
What is the gap in terms of performance? Is the performance as per industry benchmarks?
What are the over or underselling products? Why do they perform that way?
What are product offerings of key competitors? What are their largest selling products? Are there products that can be adopted?
What are the other products that can be carved out from the existing products (bundling, sub-products, etc.) to meet unserved customer requirements?

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Availability visibility study

Are there any product offerings relevant to customers / contractors but not available to them? If yes, why?
What is the on-ground product availability and visibility across geos and store types? How does it compare to competition?
What are the weak geographical areas in terms of availability & visibility?
What are the steps taken to ensure better availability and visibility of the products vis-à-vis that of competition?
Has the relation between visibility and product sales identified and leveraged upon?
What is the replenishment time for key products? How does it affect availability?

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Related Case Studies

Consumer preferences and price sensitivity analysis for building & home materials industry

Objective

An Investment fund wanted to study the customer / contractor preferences and price sensitivity for Building & Home materials industry

Methodology

Visited stores, demand centers and hubs, and spoke with ground staff and customers (N = 50+) for 3 building material products
Conducted market research survey for the client (N=1,500) across Metros, Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities
Spoken with more than 200 survey respondents to understand the specifics of purchase behavior in detail

Impact / Outcome

Successfully provided client with deep, comprehensive customer / contractor behavior aspects
Client was able to understand the price sensitivity trend by customer / contractor type, geo, product category and platform type (online vs offline)

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Market potential estimation for ceramic tile player for residential & Commercial buildings

Objective

A ceramic player is now looking to expand the sales of the ceramic tiles to South East Asia and wanted to understand market potential in these countries

Methodology

Conducted in-depth study of residential and commercial buildings in select cities in 3 countries combined with demographic data to understand affluence and estimate TAM (Total Addressable Market)
Conducted In-Depth Interviews (N=15) of real estate players to understand current / future market in these cities
Conducted In-Depth Interviews (N=10) of ex-senior leadership in competitor companies to estimate future market potential for the client
Carried out product and service benchmarking for key players offerings ceramic tiles in these cities

Impact / Outcome

Client understood market potential in each of the 3 targeted countries along with a preliminary idea of SAM (Serviceable Addressable Market)

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Opportunity analysis in supply chain financing for building & home materials

Objective

Client wanted to assess the opportunity in providing credit to the supply chain participants in the building & home materials market

Methodology

Conducted in-depth interviews (N = 30) with various distribution channel partner (Building & home materials products) including authorized dealers, distributors, retailers, and agents
Identified the channel partner behavior of the various home & materials products – margins, credit usage, and credit partners involved in the system
Conducted in-depth interviews (N = 15) with credit managers and branch managers of various banks, NBFCs, and digital lenders
Identified and benchmarked various products available to the channel partners fulfilling their supply chain financing need
Mapped loan products available with the credit usage and identified gaps in the system due to which building & home material channel partners looks for local money lenders

Impact / Outcome

Devised potential opportunity for the client suggesting starting with supply chain financing although they can face difficulty in getting cash credit from banks

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Quantitative survey to understand user satisfaction levels of a building materials player

Objective

To understand the user experience and satisfaction levels with respect to the service as well as the product and reasons for customer / contractor churn basis the voice of customers for building & home materials

Methodology

Qualitative discussions (N=15) of current and past customers / contractors across various demographics like cities, revenue levels and price sensitivity buying patterns
Undertook an in-depth survey (N=50) to measure the satisfaction levels, reasons for procuring from the player, and the pain points, if any
Interviewed churned customer (N=10) to understand their reasons for discontinuation of procurement and key drivers which would make them resubscribe to the services provided by the client

Impact / Outcome

Provided client with a dynamic model and deep insights of the current experience of the users along with feedback of erstwhile customers.

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Understanding customer / contractor experience and behavior while procuring home materials

Objective

Evaluate customer/contractor experience with the client while procuring various building & home materials

Methodology

Visited two major clusters, one each in North and West India, and conducted in-depth interviews (N = 25) with both existing and churned out customers/contractors who have procured building materials from the client in the past
Conducted in-depth interviews (N = 20) with Direct Selling Agents (DSAs) to identify product and process level differentiation with the competitors
Visited competitors’ outlets/shops (N = 15) in both the geographies to understand their product selling approach, channel preferences, etc., taken by them
Created customer/contractor journey from need generation to channel identification and procurement to delivery process and the pain points faced in between
Identified gaps in the value chain faced by the contractor/customer while procuring the building materials