Case Studies

The following is a representative sample of recent successfully completed client engagements These Case Studies span both the breadth of methodologies and the depth of the technologies and markets that define the services we offer.

Product Concept Testing in a New Market – Avoiding a Disaster

A major Chinese software developer planned to enter the United States Learning Management Systems Market.  They needed to gain a better understanding of the user perceive value of their offering, as well as the user buying process.   Daniel Research Group conducted Focus Groups utilizing its Business Focus/IT methodology, and In-Depth Interviews utilizing its M.O.R.E Framework.   The research discovered several major deficiencies in the application suite, as well as critical flaws in their marketing strategy.  These results provide the client with the opportunity to re-think its decision to enter the US Market with this offering.

A New Market Modeling and Forecasting Methodolgy - Consumer Electronic Products

The Consumer Technology Association, CTA, became interested in our new Equilibrium Methodology after reading published articles introducing this new concept in 2013.  The imethodology is implimented in our new  EquilibriumSolver™ application (EQS) that incorporates many of the other Daniel Research Group methods into one integrated tool.  The CTA engaged us to develop a custom EQS application for their use, and provide training and support.  Additionally, the CTA engaged us to use EQS to create and deliver Market Models and Forecasts for US Digital Cameras, TV sets, Smart Watches, Desktop PCs, Mobile PCs, Tablet PCs, and Mobile Phones.  Additional information about EQS is available in the following downloadable documents. 

·       DRG Equilibrium Forecasting Approach

·       EQS Fact Sheet

·       The Best Market Sizing and Forecasting Methodology and Application Ever Built

·       Why Everyone Got the Tablet Market Wrong

·     DRG US Personal Device Market Size and Forecast 1975 - 2023, 19Q3 Update

Forecast Application Replacement - Global Telecommunications Market

ACG Research, a market research and consulting firm focusing on the networking and telecom industry, engaged Daniel Research Group to design and develop a replacement market sizing and forecasting application.  ACGs taxonomies covered a dozen different product/services with multiple levels, and close to 200 countries.  The new application needed to include the capabilities to modify and expand both the product/services and the geography taxonomies, as well as add and remove years. The forecasting methods included GrowthSolver™, SegmentSolver™, and ProjectionSolver™.

In addition to designing and developing the new market sizing and forecasting application, Daniel Research Group conducted extensive secondary research, and subsequent analysis necessary to compute the model input parameters.  A final module added to the application provided ACG with the capability to rapidly and easily produce production quality tables and graphics for all of their internal documents and client deliverables.

Collaborative Modeling - Telecommunications Services Demand - Submarine Fiber Optic Cable

Pioneer Consulting, a market research firm covering the Submarine Fiber Optic Telecommunication System industry, engaged Daniel Research Group to work collaboratively with its principal manager and analyst to modify, update, and upgrade its existing country and regional level demand forecast model.  Pioneer selected Daniel Research Group for this engagement because of its unique combination of practical experience in Excel modeling, knowledge of the telecommunications services industry and technologies, and specifically its understanding of the formulation and use of the Logistic function commonly used to model and forecast telecommunications services demand.

Market Size and Forecasting Application - Professional Services 

KCRA, a leading market research firm covering the broad Professional Services industry engaged Daniel Research Group to develop a complete marketing sizing and forecasting application.  The model taxonomies needed to include 10 years,, close to 200 countries, 33 industries, and 44 professional services categories.  The application needed to support simultaneous Top-Down and Bottom-Up modeling, segmentation capabilities,  taxonomy modification and transformation, and minimize size and complexity.  The final design centered on a database repository with satellite modules for forecasting, maintenance, support, and management tasks. The forecasting module utilized both GrowthSolver™ and SegmentSolver™ methodologies.  The final design evolved into Daniel Research Group’s MarketSolver™ application.  Daniel Research Group also conducted extensive secondary research, and subsequent analysis to develop the initial inputs and parameters for the model.

Confidentiality

Many of Daniel Research Group’s clients are other Technology Market Research firms that outsource the design and development of custom forecasts, TCO/ROI and Vendor Tracker applications for their clients.  In some cases, the Market Research firm prefers that the outsourcing not be disclosed on our web site for competitive reasons.   Daniel Research Group always respects those wishes.  All of these firms may be contacted for referrals.

The following engagements were recently completed for clients that requested confidentiality.

Video Surveillance TCO – Daniel Research Group, in collaboration with the Market Research Firm, designed and developed an Excel based TCO application comparing legacy video surveillance systems with a Cloud based solution.  The end client for this application is a major storage vendor.

Legal Review Software – The market leader in the e-Discovery Software market needed an independent forecast of the Legal Review Software Market in order to plan an exit strategy for start-up and subsequent investors.   Daniel Research Group conducted extensive secondary research leading to a model design driven by trends in the frequency of lawsuits and arbitrations that require e-Discovery.  An interesting discovery revealed by the research was the importance of the rate at which new judges are appointed to fill vacancies, a process that is politically driven.  

Cloud Migration – The client’s client is a firm specializing in providing software that facilitates and enables migrating virtual and physical workloads to the Cloud.  This firm needed a forecast of the Total Available Market Segmented by Region, Industry, and Company Size.  Daniel Research Group designed and developed the TAM model.  The market research firm provided the product and technology parameter inputs while Daniel Research Group provided the business demographics from its Business Demographic Baseline and Forecast Database.

DRG - US Business Demographic Baseline and Forecast

Many of our market size and forecast engagements require segmentation by industry and/or enterprise size. In order to support these engagements, Daniel Research Group developed its own Business Demographic Baseline and Forecast.  The US Baseline and Forecast is updated several times a year as new data from the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Congressional Budget Office become available.  Detailed information about the specifications, scale, scope, and development methodologies can be downloaded from the content page - U.S. Business Demographic Baseline & Forecast.

Incorporating the Client Model - Reverse Logistics

Blumberg Advisory Group, Inc. is a Research & Consulting firm that covers the Reverse Logistics & Aftermarket Service markets. Blumberg engaged Daniel Research Group to design and develop models of the Reverse Logistics market for a variety of products including, Tablets, Desktop and Mobile PCs, Servers, Set Top Boxes, Mobile Phones, and Optical Network Hardware for both the Global Market, and selected countries including Brazil, Canada and the United States.  Higher aggregate forecasts covering Total IT and Telecommunications hardware were also built, as was a forecast for Asset Recovery and Recycling in the United States.

Market penetration models were first constructed based on baseline and penetration data obtained through secondary research. The second component utilized our InstallBaseSolver™ to create total shipments (including replacements), retirements/refurbishments, and in-use installed base units and values. The third component incorporated Blumberg’s own proprietary Reverse Logistic Model into to the overall model. The final output was produced by adjusting parameters in the Installed Base and Reverse Logistics components to yield values for key management metrics.

Simultaneous Top-Down and Bottom-Up Forecasting - Enterprise Storage

A major technology market research from covering the storage industry engaged Daniel Research Group to build a market model predicting the migration from Scale-Up architecture to Scale-Out storage architecture in the Enterprise market. This engagement requires the construction of two independent models.

The Top-Down model coupled an adoption penetration model with our InstallBaseSolver™ to predict the installed and shipped terabytes, and then applied a market wide pricing model to predict total market revenues. The Bottom-Up model was based on secondary research conducted by Daniel Research Group to compile revenue and pricing data from all of the public vendors participating in the market. The client provided similar data for the non-public vendors. The final forecast was produced by adjusting the parameters of the Top-Down model to calibrate the output with the Bottom-Up results for several key management metrics.

Collaborative Consulting - Quantifying Analysts Qualitative Assessments - Entertainment Technology

Acacia Research Group is a technology market research firm that covers the entertainment technology industry, needed to updated its Visualization, Simulation & Training report. Daniel Research Group and Acacia collaborated to build a new market model and forecast that leveraged Acacia’s existing model as well as expanding its scope through the use of Daniel Research Group SegmentSolver™ and MatrixSolver™ methodologies. The success of the collaboration was primarily due to the ability of Acacia to express its qualitative assessments in quantitative terms thought an intuitive interface.

Global Market Forecasts and Trackers –  Methodology and Applications

For 21 years Daniel Research Group was the primary consultant to IDC in the area of large scale custom market models and forecasts. Over the time Daniel Research Group designed, developed and implemented over 100 large forecast market model. Each individual forecast model was based on the particular clients’ internal product/service taxonomy as well as their Geographic, Vertical, Customer Size, and Customer Segment taxonomies. The models were highly complex, often required recursive algorithms.

Daniel Research Group developed solutions for many complex common problems involving taxonomy transformation, modeling missing data points, segmentation and validation. The success of these projects was significantly depending on tools and process utilizing Daniel Research Group GrowthSolver™, SegmentSolver™, MatrixSolver™, ShareSolver™ and InstallBaseSolver™ modeling methodologies as well as project specific methods and processes that mapped the various IDC hardware, software and services data sets into the clients' proprietary taxonomies.

In addition to the core models, Daniel Research Group’s major contribution to these projects was the overall design and construction of tools and process for analysts use, harvesting and aggregation of data and quality assurance. The success of these projects have depended heavily upon not only mathematical and methodology knowledge but additionally upon the depth and breadth of Daniel Research Group’s comprehensive understanding of the technologies and global markets.  The following is a representative list of the scope and scale of the market models that Daniel Research Group desiged and developed for IDC's clients.

Vendor	Global Market Model
ATT EDS IBM IBM Lexmark Microsoft Microsoft SAP Verizon	Telecommunications Services Printers Services Printers PC Systems Software Software Telecommunications

Major Telecommunications Vendors – Convergence and Unified Communications - Focus Groups

Daniel Research Group has designed and executed several research projects for Major Telecommunications vendors whose research objectives are to guide their long-term research and development plans into profitable market opportunities. These projects utilized large numbers of focus groups among various enterprise and consumers constituencies to gain a deep and meaningful understanding of both the current buying process and envisioned future needs.

Daniel Research Group managed the entire field operations including:

Instrumental in the success of these projects was the utilization of Daniel Research Group’s Focus/IT Enterprise Buying Model and its Consumer Life Cycle Segmentation Model in the design of the research and the crafting of the moderator guides. The research has been successful in influencing these vendors’ product and service development decisions consequently allowing them to maximize market opportunities.

Reinventing the Company – A Second Life - M.O.R.E.

The client was a company whose primary product was nearing the end of its product life. The client had benefited from several years of success but was concerned about what it correctly perceived as coming disruptive changes to its market. It wished to find new opportunities by leveraging its viable core competencies and, if necessary, by acquiring additional strategic assets.

Daniel Research Group applied its comprehensive Market Opportunity and Requirements Evaluation M.O.R.E. methodology to design and execute a series of research projects to address the client’s research objectives. These projects included surveys, telephone and on-site interviews and focus groups among enterprise end-users, primarily IT Senior Executives, in various industries. In addition, experts in various technology and markets were brought in to add expertise and analysis to the research findings. The research was successfully in identifying several market opportunities that meet the three criteria of the M.O.R.E. methodology

Subsequently the client executed a series of successful acquisitions and divestitures and is a market leader in the targeted markets today.

Automotive Industry Technical Computing – The View from the Top - a Multi-Client Study

The research objective was to identify and define the long term research & development and manufacturing computing requirement of the major automotive manufactures and key suppliers. The scope of the research required participation of the most senior technical computing executives at major automotive companies.

Daniel Research Group was able to recruit these executives (CIOs and CTOs) from the Big Three Detroit companies, three major Japanese automotive companies and major USA automotive industry suppliers to participate in a panel discussion focus group in the Detroit area. In addition, Daniel Research Group created the discussion guide by re-casting the research requirement of the sponsoring technical clients into the context and vocabulary of the automotive research participants.

The sponsoring technology vendors used the results of this research to make and influence major research & development investment decisions for hardware, software and services offerings for the automotive industry.

Embedded Developer Requirements – Find the Family Jewels

The client was a software developer that had developed a software automations tool. Among the markets that the client targeted was the Embedded Systems market. The client, in order to guide and influence its research and development efforts, needed to gain a better understanding of developer requirements.

The research challenge presented to Daniel Research Group was how to identify, reach and gain the cooperation of the developers. The target companies were engaged in developing embedded systems and considered these developers major assets that were vulnerable to recruiting by competitors, in addition to having access to critical intellectual property. The hurdles and challenges that these companies erected to protect these developers were formidable.

Daniel Research Group was able to build a staff of extremely experienced executive and technical recruiters whose collaborative efforts were able to craft strategy and tactics that were successful in breaching these barriers and gained the cooperation of these developers. The in-depth interview research was successfully completed.

System Level Software – Vendor Market Shares

One of the world’s largest systems vendors was close to announcing its entry into an emerging market with a significant systems level software product. The vendor was faced with a range of product and marketing decisions and sought help in understanding how best to craft its offering in order to maximize market share.

Daniel Research Group designed and executed focus groups among enterprise user, IT executives who were potential customers for the product. In addition, Daniel Research Group utilized its ShareSolver™ Market Model Methodology to create a market share model and forecast of this market. The results of this research allowed the vendor to craft its offering, marshal its resources and ultimately reach its market share objective.

Technical Computing - International Research

A leading vendor in the Technical Computing Workstation market needed to gain a better understanding of its end-user requirements in Europe in order to develop its next generation of hardware and software products. Daniel Research Group advised that focus groups were the best methodology to use based on the nature of the specific research issues and the density of the qualified end-user population.

Solving numerous problems related to the various languages, local custom and logistics inherent in this type of research, Daniel Research Group was able to successfully design, recruit, execute and analyze a series of focus groups held in London, Paris, Munich and Milan. The client used the results of this research to customize its core product and service offerings to meet the specific and unique requirements of its European customers.