This is also important in trying to determine whether the studio will be able to sustain the initial costs until revenues will balance them) to external data such as market share, the total size of the market, the size of the competitors, external forces impacting the market, etc.
Some of this data can be drawn from theoretical research, with much of the data being public and available for anybody. Business directories, including Google's, will be a good place to start the research for the competitors, while the research on the market can include direct contact with professional organizations, which might be specialized on the matter and may have more information on the way the market is organized. Direct contact with one or more of the potential future competitors can also be a good approach to start developing a network with some of the entities involved in the industry.
The sales benchmarking phase will basically allow us to monitor the performance of the studio against relevant third parties (different other companies operating in the market etc.) and market averages in terms of sales etc. Direct research methodologies will be used here, including sales and revenues data obtained from other companies, from business directories etc. For the studio, we will simply track the main accounting instruments (cash flow statement, balance sheet, income statement) in order to identify the evolution of sales figures.
An important and interesting part of this project will be the actual future projection of the current sales benchmarking mechanism....
The aim of this part will be to identify potential consumer trends and determine how these are likely to evolve in the future. This will create the appropriate premises for the early identification of all potential problems that may hamper sales figures in the future, determining the way the business can react to these new challenges, decide on measures to be taken at that point etc.
In order to create a framework of the potential future evolution of all these variables, we are likely to be using methods such as interviews with some of the clients, as well as with targeted, potential future customers. At the same time, interviews with other shareholders on the market, notably other competitors and regulatory bodies, can be used to determine and identify potential trends in the industry, new ways that the market can evolve, especially in terms of consumer preferences.
Finally, the project will also aim at developing a proper action plan mechanism that will put the results of the sales benchmarking process into good use. In this sense, the question is: once the data has been obtained and the results show something, what is the next step to be taken? The action plan will point out some of the potential next steps that can be taken and will determine the impact that these next steps are likely to have over the evolution of the business development process.
As mentioned, the area of research is sufficiently vast to permit a diverse research project, with implications over a longer period of the business development process.
