Value in Practice: Niche into Value
Let's understand the applications of Niche Analysis!
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It’s a new edition and as promised, this week’s edition will be a case study to help with really getting to grips with Niche Analysis within Value creation (and by extension, Value Innovation and Value strategy).
As a quick refresher, Niche Analysis is the practice of uncovering and leveraging insights on your niche (and all the parties within it!) to create Value.
The objective of Niche Analysis is understanding everyone’s proximity to each other in the niche and leveraging that proximity to create Value.
(with the aim of getting ourselves as close to the target client, donor or stakeholder as we can, closer than the competitors are.)
(If you missed last week’s edition going into Niche Analysis, don’t fret! Give it a read here!)
But first: I’m sure I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I lead Vivre Consulting, a strategy consultancy specializing in Value creation, Value Innovation and Value strategy for enterprises (just like yours!)
Well, I’m beyond excited to share that Vivre’s got a brand-new website!
We wanted to really take the time to not only refurbish our home online, but also completely reconfigure our Value offering, and how the service offerings could be packaged for the greatest impact
(a service we offer under the Value Creation suite, in fact! 😉)
And our work is complete! It's our absolute pleasure to (re)introduce you all to Vivre Consulting’s new home!
Go on and give it a visit here!
Let’s get started!
Setting the scene
In this case study, we’ve got a large and historically renowned business support agency, which we’ll call Alpha, finding itself being rendered obsolete by parties within its niche. This obsolescence had been going on for some time, as existing clients had been slowly losing faith in Alpha’s capabilities over the years, made worse by the active presence of the aforementioned parties that include:
smaller business support agencies,
corporate companies with business and enterprise development programmes,
banks with business and enterprise development programmes,
and similar organizations with a specific focus on helping businesses grow.
The nature of Alpha’s work makes it impossible to not engage all of these parties; besides, they’re all are in the same niche.
Alpha currently is the largest in the niche so Alpha is almost guaranteed to cross paths in the service of the clients (the businesses) they work with, especially as their competitors snatch away the attention of their existing clients.
Alpha now needs a way to (re)create Value and recapture lost ground, while also not completely alienating themselves from the parties in the niche, so they decide that they’ll give Niche Analysis a shot, and practically map their Value opportunities using the Niche Analysis sector in the Value Mapping framework.
Insights from Niche Analysis and mapping
Alpha puts on their Niche Analysis hats:
“what is the state of affairs regarding our proximity to our clients, our clients’ proximity to our competitors/other parties, and those parties’ proximity to us?”
And behold, they discover an excellent Value creation opportunity:
Despite their client’s faith loss in them, the historical role Alpha has played in niche means that clients in the niche trust Alpha more than the newcomers, which gives them a bit of a leg up in the proximity game
But in studying further, Alpha notices some pretty substantial gaps:
Encroachment from competitors
Innovation by competitors
Negative perceptions by niche
Enmeshed boundaries with competitors
Luckily, these gaps become Value opportunities under Value Innovation, and they can uncover additional Value by digging deeper in each gap.
For example, under Encroachment from competitors, Alpha have a chance to create Value by asking questions like:
What role do these competitors actually play in the niche?
What is our actual role in the niche?
Is there a spread (or gap) in expertise in the niche?
Who in the niche is closest to being a ‘one-stop shop’?
And how can we get there first?
Under Innovation by competitors, Alpha can understand how their competitors created proximity to their clients and where Alpha can regain their proximity, by asking:
What facilitated the competitors’ takeover?
How are they leveraging or engaging the niche to create/provide innovation that delivers the Value the clients are looking for?
Which stakeholders are they engaging in the niche to deliver Value, and how?
Under Negative perceptions by niche, Alpha can tighten up their current strategy by asking:
Which stakeholders hold what opinions, and which part of our existing strategy does that negative opinion correspond to?
Finally, under Enmeshed boundaries, they can create differentiation that helps Alpha stand out and have the client not mistake Alpha for their competitors by asking:
What are each of our mandates, areas of work and differences or similarities in mission and rationale?
What scenarios present the greatest jurisdiction confusion?
Armed with answers to all these questions, Alpha has a better understanding of the Value creation dynamics in the niche and is then in a better position to redevelop their Value offering or create a Value Strategy that puts them in greater proximity to their target clients.
And that’s Niche Analysis, in Practice!
If this case study started a flame of curiosity or interest in Niche Analysis and you’d like to see how it can be leveraged to create Value in your business, non-profit or creative venture, I’m exactly who you need to call!
Click right here to pop me an email!
I got some feedback from a number of readers telling me how much they enjoy the case studies. First of all, thank you! It’s a lot of fun putting them together, and it’s really gratifying knowing they hit for you.
Secondly, are the case studies a format that you’d like me to lean into more for future editions?
Let me know! And tell me more in the comments, drop me a line on LinkedIn, or if you received this an email, send me a reply!