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Capital Goods

Helping clients through our strong on-ground research capabilities and industry knowledge to make well-informed business decisions and win in a competitive market

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What We Do

Customer needs assessment
Voice of customer
Voice of seller
Vendor onboarding benchmarking
Procure-to-pay process mapping
Value stream mapping
Intermediary services comparison
Pricing and cost benchmarking
Vendor NPS diagnostic
Intermediary players NPS diagnostic
Opportunity evaluation
Market potential assessment
Digital maturity study
Competitive benchmarking
Target screening and tracking
Supply chain risk assessment
Supply chain cost benchmarking
Marketing effectiveness
Export potential
Micro-market identification
Bundled services opportunity evaluation
Brand health diagnostic
Concept validation
Sustainable practices benchmarking
Best processes benchmarking
Employee retention and NPS
Staff compensation benchmarking

Customer needs assessment

What are the key products (machinery, tools, equipment etc.) required by customers?
What is the key purchase / leasing criteria across different product categories?
What are the product offerings customers are aware of and currently using?
What is the frequency of usage and use cases across product categories?
What are the customer focus areas while selecting a product?
How do customers purchase products (directly / channels / online etc.)?

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Voice of customer

Which capital goods company are customers most satisfied with across product / service categories and why?
How has their experience been with different offerings across different product categories / services?
What are the reasons for preference of a particular capital goods company over others?
How do customers rate the sales and service experience?
What are the improvement areas across product categories?
What is the level of stickiness across product categories?
What are the triggers that would make customers shift to another capital goods company?
What are the key elements to provide a comprehensive customer experience?

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Voice of seller

What is satisfaction level of various seller with client and its competitors?
What are the reasons the sellers prefer to work with client? How do they vary across various seller categories?
How has the experience of seller been with various teams (procurement, finance, etc.)?
How do sellers feel about onboarding process, invoice processing?
What are the triggers that might lead to seller churn?
What are the expectations of seller? And can some of them be met?

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Vendor onboarding benchmarking

What are the key requisites needed for vendor onboarding?
What are the Indian and global benchmarks followed for vendor onboarding in the sector?
Where do we stand in the benchmarks?
What are the key reasons for the difference as per benchmarks?
What are the steps necessary to achieve these benchmarks?
What has been the experience amongst vendors on the onboarding process?

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Procure-to-pay process mapping

How many steps are involved in process from procurement to invoice processing?
Which all departments (raising request, approval, PO creation, etc.) are involved in finalizing the procurement of raw material?
What are the steps taken by each of the departments? How long does it take across each of the processes?
What is the current workflow for procurement till vendor payments? How can they be optimized?
What is the overall TAT for the entire process? And what are the global benchmarks for the same?
What are the steps that can be automated to bring down the TAT?

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Value stream mapping

Who are the key suppliers the player / sector is dependent on? What specific raw materials / finished goods do they supply?
How are the suppliers geographically located? How are they logistically linked to the player(s)?
What is the monthly / annual requirement of raw materials / semi-finished goods by the player(s) if any?
Which suppliers are fulfilling this demand? What is the mix of raw materials / semi-finished goods supplied, if any?
What kind of transportation and logistics costs are involved in the supply process?
What kind of margins do these suppliers enjoy?
How do costs and margins vary across the year (peak / non-peak season)?

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Intermediary services comparison

Which type of goods / services are provided as intermediary services?
Who are the suppliers for these intermediary goods and services?
Who are the end customers and what do they value add to the intermediary services?
Are these intermediary goods & services for export purposes?
What are the best practices for intermediary service provider?
What is the competition market in these goods / services?

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Pricing and cost benchmarking

What is the structure and breakup of cumulative cost across? What are major cost heads?
How are various cost heads compared with competition?
What are the areas of improvement for the client with respect to competition?
What are the global best practices for cost optimization?
What are some of the short-term and long-term actions that can help optimize cost?
What are is the profit pool across supply chain partners? How is it different from competitors?

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Vendor NPS diagnostic

How likely is the vendor to promote respective capital goods company?
How does the NPS vary across regions and raw materials sourced? How is it compared to the competitor companies?
What is the key reason for vendors to be a promoter / detractor?
What are various vendor management areas where capital goods company improve upon?
How is vendor stickiness across various raw materials sourced?
What are the triggers that would lead to vendor churn at a capital goods company?
What are the relative strengths and weaknesses that have the highest impact on NPS?

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Intermediary players NPS diagnostic

How likely is the intermediary player to promote respective capital goods company?
How does the NPS vary across regions? How is it compared to competitors?
What are the key reasons for Intermediary player to be a promoter / detractor?
What are the areas where services to intermediary players be improved?
What is the level of stickiness across various geos?
What are the triggers that would make intermediary player shift to another capital goods company?
What are the relative strengths and weakness that have the highest impact on NPS?

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Opportunity evaluation

What are the parameters followed to assess the potential opportunity? Is there an evaluation matrix followed for the same?
Are there quantitative or qualitative measures to evaluate the opportunities?
If yes, what are the areas which can be further refined to build a robust opportunity evaluation matrix?
If no, how do we prioritise a robust evaluation matrix capturing all critical parameters?
What are the opportunities evaluation criteria followed by competitors?
What are some of the global best practices followed?

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Market potential assessment

How attractive is the market? What is TAM, SAM for the market?
What is the customer penetration for the different product categories in the market? How will it evolve in coming years?
What product / services are driving growth in the market?
What are the key drivers of growth in the market? What are some of the possible headwinds?
How attractive are the margins in the industry? How does the margins vary across the value chain?
Is the shift happening from unorganized to organized? What advantages do scale players have?

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Digital maturity study

What is the various process involved in operations of capital goods company?
Which all processes are currently digitalized and which all other processes are yet to be digitalized?
How much is the company investing in digital transformation? Who does that compare with industry standards?
How tech savvy are business executives? How do they compare with industry standard?
How much is client investing in skilling the staff digitally? How does that compare with competition?
What can be barriers while digitizing the remaining traditional processes?

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Competitive benchmarking

How are we assessing our competition?
What are the various price points for a particular work vis-à-vis competition?
What are the parameters followed to do an effective benchmarking?
What are the global benchmarks to be followed?
What are the steps followed by competitors in evaluation of opportunities / business?
What steps have competition taken for growth in the sector?

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Target screening and tracking

How effectively the player selects target customers?
What are the methodologies used for tracking and selecting customers?
What are the best practices followed by the industry?
How to implement a robust methodology for tracking and selecting customers?
What are the steps in modifying the existing screening and tracking process?
How is competition target screening and tracking customers / business?

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Supply chain risk assessment

What are the key supply chain risks in the business?
How are those being tackled in the current scenario?
What are the issues faced by suppliers of raw materials / intermediary goods / finished goods to capital goods industry?
What are the additional parameters to be looked at for effective supply chain risk assessments?
What are the steps to mitigate these supply chain risks?
What are the mitigation steps followed globally?

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Supply chain cost benchmarking

What is the structure and breakup of cumulative cost across? What are major cost heads?
How are various cost heads compared with competition?
What are the areas of improvement for the client with respect to competition?
What are the global best practices for cost optimization?
What are some of the short-term and long-term actions that can help optimize cost?
What are is the profit pool across supply chain partners? How is it different from competitors?

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Marketing effectiveness

How has been the experience / results from the current marketing strategy followed?
What are the additional strategies that can be applied to increase effectiveness?
How do we blend outdoor, online and digital marketing strategies to provide effective results?
What is competition doing in marketing activities?
What are some of the global best practices and effective results?
What are the learnings from the past activities?

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Export potential

How attractive is export market across various products / services? What is the export potential (TAM, SAM) for various products and services?
Which geos contribute the largest to the export by products / services?
What is the market share of top 3 exporters by products /services?
What products / services are driving the export market in the geo?
What are export regulations that are hindering the growth of the export to various target geos?
What are the rationale for players / countries importing from you?

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Micro-market identification

What is the nature of opportunity in each micro-market? What are the typical customer requirements of these micro-markets?
Who are the key competitors and what are the attributes of their offerings in each micro-market?
What is our market share (points of presence / sales capacity, number of customers, business volumes / revenues)?
How do our existing offerings compare to those of the market leader?
What are the key gaps in our product focus / sales strategy / distribution strategy across micro-markets?
What is the potential business upside / risk across micro-markets?

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Bundled services opportunity evaluation

What are the parameters followed to assess the potential opportunity?
How does the economics benefit with providing a suite of services together work?
How does bundled services benefit the end customer?
What are the bundled services opportunities evaluation criteria followed by competitors?
What are some of the global best practices followed?
What has been the experience in providing bundled services?

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Brand health diagnostic

What is the degree of brand awareness with respect to competitors?
What are the key values associated with the brand?
What are the typical avenues for introducing brand to customers?
What is the effectiveness of various channels for brand introduction?
How does brand awareness change with client profile, industry, size, etc.?
How important is brand in the sale process?
What are some of the best practices to strengthen brand value?

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Concept validation

What are the various successful methods to achieve concept validation?
How can client get customer feedback on new proposed product / services?
What is the ideal methodology for testing new product concepts? What should be the sampling plan?
How can we get insights on customer preferences on the features and overall product concept pre-launch?
What should be key message and tonality while advertising the new product launch?
What is the optimal beta launch design for a proposed product?

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Sustainable practices benchmarking

What measures are needed to bring in sustainable practices?
What steps are required to be implemented to reach the sustainability benchmark requirement?
What are the global benchmarks for sustainable practice in capital goods sector?
How do client’s sustainable practices fare with that of global / Indian?
How do client’s sustainable practices fare with that of competition?
What are the benefits of sustainable practices? How will that benefit the client?

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Best processes benchmarking

How do the key metrics of our business processes (e.g. turnaround time, first-time right, NPS, etc.) compare with competitors?
What are the areas of process improvements based on a time and motion study?
What are the hands-on-time and wait time for each step of the process?
What steps of the process can be eliminated or automated?
What are the customer experience and efficiency gains for customers?
What are the best practices followed both globally / India?

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Employee retention and NPS

What is the churn rate for the client?
How satisfied are the employees with the capital goods company across different parameters?
What are the areas of strength which employees would like the capital goods company to continue and build on?
What are the key improvement areas?
How satisfied are the employees with their career path in the company?
How likely are the employees willing to recommend the capital goods company to others?

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Staff compensation benchmarking

What are various components of the compensation across various departments and hierarchy?
How is staff compensation across various department and hierarchy compared to competitors?
What are the areas / parts where the staff is satisfied by the compensation?
What are various additional perks across the hierarchy? How are these additional perks compared to perks offered by competitors?
What are the key improvement areas for client as compared to competitors?
What are the global and local benchmarks for the same?

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Connect with our Capital Goods Experts

Madhur Singhal

Mentor

Aryaman Tandon

Mentor

Hitesh Gossain

CEO, Network

Amar Choudhary

CEO, Intelligence & Insights

Aditya Thakur

Growth Leader, Operations

Related Case Studies

Mapping the vendor onboarding process and parameterizing the vendor selection process

Objective

A mid-sized machinery tools manufacturer wanted to stream-line its vendor on-boarding process and wanted to parameterize the vendor selection for each raw material. Client also wanted to create a dashboard for the same.

Methodology

Conducted in-depth interview with multiple stakeholders (N=10) and in-depth interview the current vendor base (N=30) to understand the current vendor onboarding process
Conducted interviews with industry experts (N=5) to understand the best practices for onboarding vendors
Created dashboard for mapping vendor onboarding process helping visualize step by step progress for vendor onboarding

Impact / Outcome

Client revamped the vendor onboarding process and streamlined the onboarding process reducing the number of touchpoints required for vendor.

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Due diligence on a small equipment manufacturer in the capital goods segment

Objective

The client wished to quickly understand the demand side and supply side dynamics for the sector and the manufacturer.

Methodology

Conducted an in-depth study on the different stakeholders (N=15) with a focus on identifying demand side issues and key pain points associated with end customers
Conducted in-depth interviews (N=25) with competitors and industry professionals (N=10) to understand issues on supply side.
Identified areas of differentiation in terms of the business and operating models, with a deep understanding on areas that can be targeted for tapping higher demand.

Impact / Outcome

The client developed a good understanding of demand side and supply side issues and constraints to better assess the manufacturer.

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International Opportunities assessment in EPC for Coal and Gas based projects

Objective

The client wanted to understand International Opportunities in EPC for Coal and Gas based projects in a list of 15 countries.

Methodology

Assessed the power market scenario in 15 countries - including top 5 countries
Study included country risk factors at a macro level:
Power sector overview
Power generation capacity
Primary developers
Competitive Bidding scenario for EPC
Financing arrangement for EPC
International EPC players
Upcoming opportunities in EPC
Primary interactions with key players in list of countries were undertaken to understand on ground realities (N=15)
Secondary research and literature review were carried out for all countries to understand the above points.

Impact / Outcome

Shortlisted 5 countries from the list of opportunities to pursue namely Turkey, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Angola and Zimbabwe. Within these countries a list of 50 projects were shortlisted for further assessment.
Additional countries such as Kazakhstan and Myanmar were assessed and added to the shortlist.

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Mapping the process from purchase to payment

Objective

A mid-sized construction equipment company wanted to deep-dive on the thinking process and understand customer mindset while purchasing / leasing construction equipment. The client also wanted to understand how the thinking process evolves when equipment is purchased / leased online instead of offline.

Methodology

Conducted in-depth interviews with customers who had either leased or considered leasing (N = 50) to understand thinking process involved in leasing equipment, especially leasing equipment through online platform.
Conducted customer survey (N = 350) in 2 weeks across 10 cities (mix of metro, tier 1 and tier 2 cities) for different customer archetypes across geographies and employment categories to understand key considerations while leasing / purchasing construction equipment and propensity to purchase / lease online
Created a flow chart enumerating the 4-step thinking process customers follow while choosing vendors to lease / purchase from including reasons thereof
Identified where purchase vs leasing fits in the entire thinking process and how customer decides between purchase and leasing once equipment requirement enters the consideration set

Impact / Outcome

Client clearly understood the entire thought process behind purchasing / leasing products and the additional nuances that appear if purchase / leasing is through online platform.

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Market potential assessment for a metal fabrication aggregator

Objective

An Indian based metal fabrication aggregator wanted to expand internationally and conduct a deep dive study in terms of primary and secondary research for assessing the market in terms of fragmentation, regulations for launching in the country, taxation policies, etc.

Methodology

Extensive study was conducted on the shortlisted counties through secondary and primary research with the industry experts of the country.
More minute details in terms of the fulfilment cycle of the projects, sourcing, payment terms, pain points of different relevant stakeholders and others were presented in detail which could impact the decision of the investments.
Primary interactions with key players in shortlisted countries were undertaken to understand on ground realities (N=15)
Unit economics of relevant stakeholders was also estimated based on the discussions for better market understanding.

Impact / Outcome

Helped the client to identify a market of USD ~ 5.0B for steel fabrication products after incorporating the inputs from the market along with the existing pain points which helped them to understand their value addition for the market.

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