Craft Driven Market Research, a Noida based company provides market intelligence, business consulting and market research services that span across various segments of the start-up industry. It aims at providing the best solutions and knowledge to increase the clients’ market space and gain maximum benefit of their respective capacities. It specializes in market research that covers market intelligence, competition analysis, customer analysis, marketing strategy, pricing strategy, market expansion, customer preferences and customer segmentation and profiling.
Aakanksha Aggarwal, the Founder, was always fascinated with different businesses and the way market moves in specific patterns. She found solace in reading about different companies, their strategies and business decisions which impacted their revenue at large scales even though decisions seemed quite minor. But turning this passion into profession didn’t strike her early on. It was during her Master’s in Management while working on several projects requiring market-research that made her realise its real-time importance for new businesses, product launches and the businesses that are going to expand their territories. This realisation, added with many start-ups faltering due to lack of clear business direction, made her explore more on the same and let her create a market research structure that can help start-ups take better business decisions.
Craft Driven officially started in Feb 2016 with Aakanksha working alone for a good time-period with some hired interns. Initially, it was quite difficult to convince small companies that market research can actually save them quite a lot of money, but slowly it picked up. Now her team works on an average of 80 projects in a year and many of them are repeat customers which she believes is quite amazing in a field such as market research.
Fuelling Startups
Globally, the startup trend saw the young and passionate come forward with new ideas and start their business around it. However, their success rate remains low. In the year 2016, it was reported that more than 200 start-ups closed their doors in India alone. The reasons ranged from lack of resources, lack of proper planning to lack of correct estimations etc. Aakanksha believes that if they had been provided proper market research, many of them could have been saved. “Craft Driven Market Research was established with the plain motive to support start-ups and businesses in achieving their goals through market research, “added Aakanksha.
The company is a boutique market research firm that provides custom market research to the clients. It has a strong experience working with firms located all over the globe while supporting the companies in shaping their innovation and creativity. It believes in keeping everything sharp and concise and strongly trusts its small team which leads to lower overall costing of the projects, an ideal situation for the clients as well as the firm!
It has worked with several start-ups and businesses in the USA, the UK, Europe, and the Scandinavian countries, Australia, India, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. Recently, it has started a new segment that focuses primarily on the Singaporean market. The major research areas that the company works on are:
- Customer analysis
- Competitor Landscape
- Market Trends and Analysis
Based on the above three studies, it further supports the clients with their marketing strategy, business development strategy, business plans, company projections etc.
Seeking Opportunities and Meeting Challenges
New business launches are never easy; one needs to understand multiple factors before taking up any decision which market research does for them. A new business can have a good investment, a great idea, generate enough customer interest and have everything seemingly going great for them. But if it can’t fathom the extent to which the business can grow, and take strategic decisions, they may eventually shut-down.
Talking of opportunities in market research, Aakanksha says that it’s positive for coming years and that “Even though the awareness is growing slowly, yet it’s taking stronger steps.” The last 3 years have seen the change in terms that earlier people were to be told what market research can do for them and now, they already know the benefits.
She further adds that in today’s time, the major challenge is the start-up industry is that people are motivated more by funding and investment, and less by passion, which is definitely not a necessary drive to get success in the business. She says, “People ask us to do market research and they expect that we will set up their business for them. They do not understand that they also need to invest their time to understand the outputs of market research and then use them for their business.”
Advice for the Newbies
Aakanksha reminiscences when as a kid, she read the lines- Try to get what you like; else you will be forced to like what you get. The statement stayed with her. For all the budding start-ups and entrepreneurs, she says, “start liking your work and yes, money is also important. Purpose of any business is making profits, don’t do things for free unless you get any return (it could be mental satisfaction as well).” Trusting employees and delegating work is important, as an entrepreneur can’t do everything all alone.
Exploring new shores
The company now has a strong foothold in India and is looking forward to its expansion in Singapore. It is narrowing down its expertise through sub-segments of the company so that it can support more start-ups and businesses to take difficult decisions. Craft Driven hopes to make a bigger impact on the lives of several entrepreneurs and businesses.
Source :-The 10 Highly Recommended Market Research Companies 2019
