Meaning Market mapping, as defined and developed by Malcolm McDonald and Ian Dunbar, is used in market segmentation to help

companies identify the target group(s) for their segmentation project and forms the second step in the segmentation process. It also has a number of other important applications, such as tracking changes in the channels to market, presenting your own company's performance on these routes to market and illustrating where your sales and marketing resources are allocated, which can then be compared with how your key competitors allocate their resources.

A channel map is one of the most important, but least used, elements of an effective profit improvement program. It is the key to big, sustainable increases in profits and growth, especially in your most important accounts. It also provides decisive competitive differentiation building big barriers to entry based on customer knowledge, relationships, and trust. This enables you to secure and grow your most important customer relationships, and to penetrate and grow critical potential accounts. The power of a channel map is that it gives you a detailed overview of the cost buildup as your products flow through your company, and into and through your customers company. The objective is to identify ways to increase efficiency and reduce cost. You also can use the same technique for coordinating with your suppliers to lower your own input costs. The starting point in a channel map is to partner with a customer, and select a few representative products. Defination A market map defines the distribution and value added chain between final users and suppliers, which takes into account the various buying mechanisms found in a market, including the part played by influencers.

The Market Map framework The Market Map framework is intended to serve two purposes. 1. For the policy maker and rural development planner, it is a conceptual framework for thinking about the commercial and institutional environment in which small-scale producers (including smallholder farmers) operate. 2. For the practitioner, it is a practical and potentially a participatory tool, that can be used to represent and communicate knowledge about specific producers, their market-chains, institutional environments and service needs.

Processes of elaborating the Market Map, if conducted in a participatory way, can also be important interventions in themselves - directly improving linkages and relationships between market-chain actors, and preparing the ground for introducing or generating innovation in products, processes and market access. The Market Map is made up of three inter-linked components.

Market chain actors and their linkages Enabling business environment factors Business and extension service providers The central component maps the economic actors who actually own and transact a particular product as it moves through the market-chain from primary producer to final consumer By better understanding the contribution each actor in the chain brings to the product, the aim is to identify inefficiencies, inequities and losses which could be remedied, or added-value which could be captured by poor producers particularly. While many market-chains are characterised by inequitable relationships between actors, a clear objective of the Market Map approach is to help stakeholders realise mutual benefits by improving the 'systemic efficiency' of the chain. Key to this is helping stakeholders become more aware of functions and processes along the chain that are needed to satisfy more lucrative or reliable markets. The second component of the Market Map is a charting of the critical factors and trends that are shaping the market-chain environment and operating conditions, but may be amenable to change. These 'enabling business environment' factors are generated by structures and institutions that are beyond the immediate direct control of economic actors in the market-chain. The purpose of charting this business environment is to understand the trends that are affecting the entire market-chain, and examine the powers and interests that are driving change. This knowledge can help determine avenues and opportunities for realistic action, lobbying and policy entrepreneurship. The third component of the Market Map framework is concerned with mapping these services that support, or could potentially support, the market-chain's overall efficiency. The range of services that can potentially add value is huge and include: input supplies; market information; financial services; transport services; quality assurance - monitoring and accreditation; technical expertise and business advice; veterinary services; support for product development and diversification. Mapping 'services ' involves identifying particular service needs and their locations within the market-chain in order to get an overall picture of the opportunities for using services to improve market-chain efficiency or equity. This mapping is a precursor to subsequently assessing the most appropriate mechanisms for delivery of services, in terms of outreach, sustainability and cost-effectiveness.

the various buying mechanisms found in a market, including the part played by influencers.

Steps of Market mapping 1. Identify the types of customers (e.g Industrial customers) Understand the areas while identify type of customers by help of sector, size, frequency, usage, benefits 2. Identification of key Intermediaries retailers (types) distributors, retail format available in targeted areas mail-or online etc

3 identify Influencers consultants, contractors, media, kirana storekeeper etc

4.Volume and market share of key customers, intermediaries influencers ( all the above) Benefits of Market mapping

Validate your value propositions and scale to a broader set of targets To Collect qualitative and quantitative information about your most appropriate markets, clusters and segments. To Finding the right partners for your channel program based on geography, specialty or market penetration. Specific recommendations and action plans necessary to create market and channel advantages. The appropriate action plan for channel coverage and communication. Learn if your business model will hold up under the demands of increased sales volume Assess channel sales motions and measure penetration and effectiveness of channel marketing programs.

Application of Market Mapping in Retail industry India: Telecom market structure In india Mobile penetration= 70% The star markers indicate the shops in the area selling telecom products. We need to emphasize here that initially an organization doesnt even have a list of these shops, let alone a map on which they are plotted.

Example of a sales territory - Part of Bangalore City, India,

Above star marks outlets can be categorized in many ways. For example, we can have the following categories Categorization of Outlets

Multi-brand outlets Those that sell telecom products of more than one telecom provider. These retailers are specialists in the telecom sector having an accurate understanding of a telecom customer. They end up being the biggest advisors to any sales manager and also the biggest source of info regarding the competitors. Branded retail outlets Those that sell telecom products of a single organization. These outlets are frequently company owned-company operated (COCO). However there can be other forms like franchisee owned-franchisee operated (FOFO). They are generally located in an up-market area where there is more customer foot traffic. Kirana stores (Mom and Pop stores) These are friendly neighborhood shops selling a variety of products for daily consumption in a household. Many times these shops contribute only a small amount of business to the telecom organization. However, they definitely increase the visibility and reach for any telecom organization.

For Vodafone india to do business in Bangalore city it needs to place its products within these outlets. They are the customer touch points and the breadth and depth of the sales channel. Therefore, having a list of these outlets is one of the foremost and critical steps. This activity can be referred to as retail mapping. How to do Retail Mapping

Stage 1 : Obtaining and referring to an existing database - Many times channel sales managers and distributors of existing brands offer a new brand in anticipation of a larger salary and higher margins. They end up becoming an extremely important source of this information. These people bring with them an already existing list either in the form of a file or their awareness of the geography. The aforementioned method is the easy way out. This would help you directly go to those shops. But no telecom organization will consider a readymade list as absolute. Even if a ready-made list exists, validation and verification are the necessary steps. It is definitely unethical to disclose confidential information of the list of outlets of a competitor. However occurrence of this conduct cannot be ruled out. Stage 2 : Traversing the geography and visiting the outlets - Every morning all the channel managers and the employees of channel partners traverse the roads of their respective territories. They stop at every outlet selling telecom products. They search for posters, danglers, streamers, non-lit boards, lit-boards and other such branding elements. They stop at these outlets and record the information as needed. Stage 3 : Retail Mapping Information Convey: The information collected in retail mapping is extremely critical to make strategic decisions for various functions in a telecom organization. This information not only ensures an effective launch but also establishes a solid foundation and direction for the organization by aligning its strategy based on the truths of the geographical territory. This territory is analogous to a battleground where the competitors fight everyday to get a bigger piece of the customer share.The main information sought about an outlet is the number of activations and amount of recharge done for various telecom providers. This information helps assess the importance of that outlet. An outlet doing high activations and selling significant recharge is definitely a very critical outlet in which to place stock. the information and its impact on the strategic thinking of marketing and sales functions in a telecom organizationon the basis of following parameters

Sales strategy for retail outlets based on info gathered about them

Marketing strategy for retail outlets based on info gathered about them

Vodafones retail mapping process

Sampling Data of outlets : Outlet A No. of 10 activations per month Papar Recharge 100 (In Rs.) per month Eletronic 1000 Recharge (in Rs.) per month Noise in the As-is Process Outlet B 25 Outlet C 150 Outlet D 300 Outlet E 50

1000

3000

2000

2000

30000

20000

30000

Elimination of Noise Present in As-is Process of Retail Mapping Usage of information and location technology eliminates the noise generated during the as-is process and reveals the following conclusions: 1. The activities of manually generating the electronic form of the list by sales representatives and also manually collating the list by a backend person are eliminated in the to-be process. Hence noise, such as incorrect data entry, incorrect outlet names and categories, is not present. 2. Multiple versioning can be taken care of by the server. Whenever there is an update made regarding any outlet, it flows to the server and a new version can be created. The versions can also be tracked and controlled by the server. 3. The effort is drastically reduced as two steps are eliminated. The sales force can concentrate on other priority activities like channel management and feedback from market. 4. Wasteful expenditure in creating incorrect branding elements is eliminated. 5. The real-time capture and update of store performance data can help to effectively tune the sales and marketing strategy. Better Strategy Formulation Since sales are all about handling the geographical territory, it makes great sense to map the parameters (refer to Figure 8). This can give vital inputs in formulating an efficacious strategy.

Figure 8: Detecting the high potential sales areas example scenario (Part of Bangalore City, India HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO Consider a hypothetical map and assume the plotting of retail outlets with recharge sales > Rs. 5000/- from 25th Aug 2011 until 3rd Sep 2011. The clutter in the encircled region shows many cellular phone recharges happening in that area during this period. Further investigation reveals a majority Muslim community in that region. The company can offer special Full Talk Time promotions for Rs. 786/- to generate maximum sales from that area during the festival period of Eid the following year (refer to Figure 9).

Detecting the timing and location of selling a product example scenario (Part of Bangalore City, IndiaBetter targeting of low performance areas The zonal manager often deals with a large area with many sales reps reporting to him. It is not feasible for him to cover the entire territory during his visits. He needs to identify the areas which require his attention and target them during his visit. HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO Consider a hypothetical map showing the initial A category outlets with last months sales being less than 200 units (refer to Figure 10), indicating that they have not made sales commensurate to A category. The zonal manager can visit these outlets and areas to understand the causes and take corrective action.

Detecting under-performing areas example scenario (Part of Bangalore City, India, Map taken from

To-be Process of Retail Mapping Each sales representative would have a hand-held device that is GPS-enabled. He would visit the shop, gather the data and feed them into the mobile enterprise application running on the handheld device. This information would flow to a server in near real-time and update the central database. Additionally, the latitude and longitude of the outlet would also be recorded and updated. The server would record information from all the sale representatives and collate that information into a single master list.

Market mapping based on Sales Territory helps in following

Measure performance of each region Identify underperforming sales territories Adjust resource allocation Outline high-potential zones to explore new services Improve visits by sales representatives Redefine territory assignment Simplify territory realignment Improve travel time use Reduce travel costs Improve sales coverage Gain better insight into sales effectiveness and performance by territory