MRA’s Strategic Insight Tools

MRA offers five specific strategic insight tools to help you…

(a) position, plan and build your brand, and

(b) measure performance against plan and link opportunity gaps directly to the components of performance so you can turn your plan directly into measurable improvements. And so on in a positive feedback improvement loop.

The 5 strategic insight measures are…

1. We all, every person, every group or company, have built in biases and blind spots which make it difficult to see ourselves as objectively as others see us. To see ourselves, warts and all, not just as we’d like to be seen. Companies are vulnerable to the perils of group think, just as we tend to cluster in like-minded social media ‘bubbles’ where those around us share our views and reinforce our perceptions. This groupthink makes it difficult to step outside the bubble and see clearly. To overcome this problem MRA Research developed the Management Mirror, a strategic insight ‘looking glass’ tool that captures management perceptions, and how it thinks it is seen and compares that with the reality of customer perception. Unless grounded in facts and reality there can be no improvement.
2. Next, the Brand Waiting Room asks customers, if things go badly wrong, for example a major prolonged quality or supply problem, and you had to turn quickly to another supplier which brand would you choose to permanently replace them? Our research shows that around 80% of companies have a plan B, a company they’d call if they had to. That’s the brands in their waiting room, and the competing brands in your waiting room. There are two aspects to this powerful question, and how many waiting rooms your brands is in, is a an early predictor of your future growth.
3. The Loyalty Index measures customer retention and is forward-looking – how committed customers are and how likely some are to leave. Used together with The Waiting Room, and benchmarking your brand loyalty with competitors’ is a powerful targeting tool.
4. The BrandMap Spectrum profiles a series of attributes such as price, quality, deliveries, order processing efficiency, technical support, and dealing with complaints etc. and measures the gap between the importance of the attribute to customers (what they want) and performance (what people get). The gaps between the two are what we call the opportunity gaps. If you narrow the gaps customers will be more satisfied and happier, and the smaller the gap the happier they are. The complete series of attribute gaps establishes the brand profile which you can compare over time (to show improvement) and with competitors to reveal competitive advantages as perceived by customers. The BrandMap Spectrum is therefore forward looking.
5. The sum – the average – of these attribute or opportunity gaps is a measure of brand strength (and relative brand strength compared with competitor brands) and is also forward looking. A strong measure correlates with growth. We call this strategic measure Net Brand Momentum.

Contact us on hello@mra-research.co.uk to find out how we can help you gain insight into your business, your brand or your market.