Analysis of customs statistics. Encyclopedia of Marketing

Criminal monopoly of foreign trade If in 1991 (according to the most conservative expert estimates) the “leakage” of Russian capital abroad amounted to $550 million, then in 1993 it was already $1.7 billion, and in 2002 Russia’s losses were about 12 billion dollars Total non-return of illegally displaced persons

Sergey Malakhov Doctor of Economics, Pierre Mendès France University
Economic Policy No. 6 for 2011

If you are going to or have already connected your activities with export or import, then you are a great fellow and also lucky. Well done, because foreign trade is a game of large size and scope, and in such a game the prize is usually also large. You and I will go to him.

The problems are well-known, as in any business: How not to make a mistake with the price? Where to find a reliable supplier? Who else should I deliver the goods to? What is more profitable to trade?

If these problems are not dealt with and ignored, this can lead to the following: obviously unprofitable contracts are concluded, sales plans are not fulfilled, and your market is lost. The risk of missing out on new competitors appearing under your nose greatly increases, not to mention missing out on a new growing market. Important time is running out. And others don't sleep!

There is one more problem. It occurs when the company is already well on its feet and actively trading. A foreign company almost always considers this problem to be the most important, and it sounds like this: How to increase market share.

With the help of an assistant who will allow you to influence the course of the game. Those who engage only in domestic trade do not have such an assistant. Or rather, recently, a few years ago, he was. Let it be some kind, but it was. Was and was blown away. Our dear ROSSTAT blew it away. Unlike the laws of most countries, in our country data on factory production volumes suddenly suddenly (in May 2009) became a terrible secret. All over the world, factories are proud and boast of their sales (the millionth tractor, they say, came off the assembly line), but in our country - shh...... ROSSTAT doesn’t tell anyone to know anything! But we won't be sad. We, in our export-import game, have an assistant - His Majesty customs statistics.

Where do customs statistics come from?

From data on foreign trade transactions, cargo, declarations, which are collected centrally from customs posts in the Federal Customs Service and form a single database. We call the huge file that is generated by the customs service raw materials. It is full of everything that is in no way interesting to a marketer. However, there are positions from which, like bricks, the whole puzzle is built - a competitive alignment.

I will list the main ones that can be identified for each foreign trade transaction:

• Name, address and country of the sender (i.e. supplier of the consignment)
• Name, address and country of the recipient (that is, the buyer of the consignment)
• Invoice cost of the consignment (price of the consignment expressed in the contract currency)
• Statistical consignment value (consignment price expressed in US dollars)
• Batch volume in natural units (pieces, kilograms, liters)
• Date of customs clearance of the cargo (shows when the goods arrived in the country)
• Name and country of manufacturer of the imported goods
• Name of the manufacturer of the exported goods
• Description of the consignment of goods (depending on your luck here: for some product groups the description is given in detail, including brands, models and even technical characteristics, for others - only two or three words)
• Commodity nomenclature code of the Commodity Nomenclature of Foreign Economic Activity of the product (this position is not always used for analysis)

In addition to these ten items, we will also mention several other items related to logistics and cargo delivery conditions. At first glance, they do not relate to marketing. But we will make sure that this is only at first glance.

We take the statistical cost of the batch (it is always converted into US dollars for all operations), divide it by the volume in pieces, get the cost of a unit of goods from a competitor and set our own contract price. However, often a batch is formed not from homogeneous goods (for example, as in the case of grain, crushed stone or wine), but from similar but heterogeneous goods (for example, different elements of furniture, shoes, clothing, equipment). In this case, dividing the total cost of the batch by the total volume in pieces is meaningless. The average temperature in the hospital is obtained. Where is the exit? It sometimes occurs: among a wide variety of deliveries, look for batches of homogeneous goods. They meet sometimes.

We identified another problem: Who else should we deliver the goods to?

It must be said that the two problems mentioned are often closely related. If you guess the price, you will win the negotiations and you will sign a new contract. For example, the way it happened for the marketers of the largest glass corporation, one of the world leaders in the production of sheet glass. “We analyzed the analytical table of your report for several quarters, found the largest consumers (importers) in it, met with them, made them a better price offer, and now they are working with us.”

The search for the most profitable buyers can be done very quickly, in a matter of seconds, if you build a general rating of cargo recipients: at the top are those with the largest total purchase volumes, then in descending order of volumes. It is clear that the twenty at the top of the ranking are the most attractive for partnership. These companies have the greatest appetite for purchasing your goods.

But be careful: the same foreign company at different customs posts may be entered into customs statistics with different spellings. Here's an experiment for you. Within just one month, we have been writing out variants of various spellings of the CATERPILLAR company in various imports. There were a lot of supplies, and we found 21 variants of different spellings:

• CATERPILLAR (UK) LIMITED.
• KATERPILLER,
• LAKESTER CATERPILLER DESFORD,
• CATERPILLAR INS,
• TRADEMARS OF CATERPILLAR INC. (GERMANY),
• CATERPILLAR S.A.R.L.,
• CAT, ...
• And so on and so forth.

Well, when the ratings for foreigners are built, it will be easy to identify the most experienced suppliers of goods who work a lot and actively “for Russia”, and the most “delicious” buyers of exported goods, and, finally, the most sought-after manufacturers of goods imported to Russia .

How to select data about your market niche from customs statistics?

Many people already know about the international classifier of commodity nomenclature (in short - TN VED), which contains codes for more than 11 thousand types of goods. Each code has 10 digits. During the customs clearance process, the product is assigned one of the codes. The code that is closest in meaning is closer.

We have already mentioned the HS code and included it in the list of main items for performing market analysis. To select the necessary supplies for analysis, you need to determine the code of your product. Then you need to “remove” supplies related to this code from the statistics. Today, there are a dozen information companies that offer you to name the code of the product you are interested in and purchase a sample of data by code for a month, quarter or year. You will remove everything unnecessary from the raw materials, correct the names of the companies and build the ratings and report yourself.

Is there really a “but” here too? Yes! And the most important thing!

When creating the classifier, customs specialists did not bother to ensure that the codes exactly corresponded to any market niche. Therefore, very often the HS code approximately coincides with the niche. In one case, the code may cover a niche that is more significant than you need, in another – narrower, in the third – it is not at all clear what to do, since the codes are assigned differently at different customs offices.

Let me give you an example:

The company imports polyester fabrics and is particularly interested in supplying printed fabrics with a width of 220 cm and a density of more than 65 gsm. m. Wants to estimate the total volume of imports, the level of concentration of participants and other indicators. To select data, the company’s marketer stops at position 5512 of the HS classifier entitled “Fabrics made of synthetic fibers containing 85 wt. % or more of these fibers." He stops and has no doubts, since his company itself imports these fabrics and declares them as such. Now the marketer can only do the arithmetic and estimate the volume of supplies. To do this, he acquires statistics for the next quarter and sees that in total similar fabrics worth a little more than half a million thousand dollars are imported into the country. The specialist reports his result to the boss, and he says, “Dear, you did something wrong or they sold you the wrong data! Our main competitor imports these fabrics into the country many times more than your figure!”

As a result, the analyst provided the boss with the real volume of imports, which differed from the original figure by 7 times!!! At what address were the remaining trading transactions discovered?

At the address of commodity item 5407. Its name is “Fabrics made of synthetic filament threads.” One word – “this is how it is done at our customs!” This is what specialists who processed cargo for other participants in foreign trade activities at another customs office would say. To be fair, we note that it is really not easy to figure out which position is more suitable. And the customs authorities have no serious objections, because the customs duty rate for both positions is the same. But for market analysis, we have a “not weak” difference between the second version of calculations and the first – by as much as 87% (!).

Here's another example:

It is known that food for cats and dogs is imported under product group 230910, because its name exactly sounds like “food for cats and dogs.” Once we made a “measurement” of the monthly trading volume and received a figure of $16.5 million. It seemed to us that the number was too small. We expanded our search horizons and looked into other groups. It was discovered that in group 230990 there was another three million dollars worth of commodity transactions in feed. Thus, we found about 15% of import volumes far from the right place. Agree that such a discovery seriously changes the balance of market shares among consumers, manufacturers, and suppliers. And as we understand, inaccurate numbers are not far from wrong decisions. An exciting prospect.

And another example.

Having looked through the HS classifier, it is easy to assume that hemodialysis concentrates should be assigned a code within the HS position 3824 (chemical preparations). And he will be right, but -... only 50%, since half(!!!) the desired market volume can be found inside product item 2836, which relates to carbonates, peroxocarbonates and other things very distant from concentrates.

There are a number of goods that the HS classifier does not mention at all. Have you heard, for example, about thermal imagers? And there are niches (for example, hydraulic parts for cars), the codes for which are scattered like a fan across all sections of the classifier.

At the first step, we ask the customer to name (write) a keyword that should be present in the description of supplies. Sometimes you have to make a whole list of words. At the second step, we run the list according to statistics, and do not miss a single delivery whose description contains keywords. Therefore, when working with information or marketing companies, we recommend stocking up on a list of such keywords in advance and indicating their verification to the contractor in writing.

By the way, although not very on topic, I will make a small digression on the topic: how best to determine your niche? How to formulate its name? It turns out that there is a universal criterion by which you can check the correctness of the formulation. If you have a chance to become the No. 1 company in this niche, then your choice is the right one. From here, try setting a task to search for data.

A contractor who has good skills in working with customs statistics will be able to quickly determine whether a “end-to-end” search will be needed for all statistics or only for the Commodity Nomenclature of Foreign Economic Activity code. And let him be sure to tell you what search technology he used. If the contractor “works only by code,” then you will know what risks you may encounter.

How can you be sure that your future report will definitely contain useful and valuable market data? Well, for example, you were sure that the total volume of imports in your niche was equal to a million dollars, and suddenly you find out that it is 10 million dollars and that in a future report you will be disclosed data on all these millions.

Or so. You knew that there are three more competing importers, but they tell you that there are seven of them and that you will read about their activities in the report.

Or, finally, so. You thought that there were only five deliveries in the last month, but there were twenty-five.

It is clear that if you find out these key indicators “onshore”, even before you pay for the work, then the risk of wasting money in vain is reduced to zero.

Therefore, before placing an order, ask the contractor for an express calculation of the main market indicators. At a minimum, these include:

• Total trade turnover of all participants
• Number of trading companies
• Number of deliveries (export or import).

As we understand, it is very possible to start from this data when making a decision about purchasing information. And the most important thing is to get them for free.

The more detailed the product batches for a particular niche are described (that is, the more characteristics of the product are contained in the description), the more accurately you can calculate the most popular product within this niche.

However, the completeness of product descriptions differs sharply in different industries.

The most detailed description comes from the automotive industry.

Let me give an example of a description of a batch of trucks:

New truck tractor brand: VOLVO, mod.: FH-TRUCK 4x2, vin/chassis: YV2AP80A2DA740839, year of manufacture: 2012 (November 28), color: green, mod. engine: D16G600 EUV, engine no.: 067150, body no.: none, engine rpm: 16125 cm 3, power: 450 kW/ 612 hp, engine type:

What characteristics can be identified here?

• by year of release
• by brand
• by model
• by gross weight
• by engine power.

Therefore, reports on the import or export of cars are the most complete. In them, tables describing deliveries contain the largest number of columns, each of which records one of the characteristics of the product. But at the same time, the reports are highly labor-intensive: you must first “expand” the description of each delivery. “Expand” means manually spreading the characteristics of the car from the general description of the product into separate columns of the table.

Let us give examples from different industries related to the possibility of identifying field characteristics or characteristics from supply descriptions.

In the glass industry
From product descriptions you can “find out” types of glass: painted glass, glass with a heat-saving layer, laminated building glass, fireproof glass, etc. and so on. We counted the possibility of dividing into 14 types of glass. It is clear that the result of this process will be to identify the most popular species.

In mechanical engineering
Of interest is the division of machine tools into machines with CNC and without CNC. Here is an example of a description of a consignment of goods, in which you will find a defining phrase: CNC vertical milling center, three-phase, 380V, mod. DFZ 2500 - 1 piece, gray No. 07-4311-0004 for dry and wet milling

In medical equipment
X-rays also have different purposes. Here is an example of a delivery description in which it can be defined: a medical equipment product, a mobile surgical X-ray device, ARCADIS AVANTIC models with accessories, OKP CODE 944220

In the textile industry
It is important to divide trade by area of ​​use. Example: colorless glass bottle, OKP code 5987, with thread, for alcoholic beverages with a capacity of 0.5 l – 37700 pcs.

In the fishing industry
useful to know whether frozen or defrosted fish is delivered. Example: Fish Seabass/sea bass/sea bass (sea bass, dicentrarchus labrax) in carcasses, chilled, ungutted, with head, gills, tail, fins

In the construction field
It is useful to divide building mixtures into types. This description allows us to classify the supply as a supply of plaster: white construction plaster based on gypsum ROTBAND in boom. Packaging of 30 kg art. 136528-18.00 tons (600 pcs)

Veterinary
It is useful to divide premixes by animal species: Premix for cows “KRS AGRI” code (a0736) - 640 mesh; premix for pigs "PIGS AGRI" code (a8982) - 160 mesh, code (a0893) - 800 mesh. composition: multicomponent mixture of vitamins, micro and macroelements, antioxidant, feed limestone filler.

The worst option from the point of view of information content is when the description of a batch of goods is limited to only one word – “equipment”. That's all. Which? For what? Say no more.

It happens that in some niche, for many deliveries, the description of the product is extended, but for some – only one word. In this case, we recommend that you negotiate with the contractor so that in the final report, cases of lack of characteristics of the product are counted separately. For example, among 100% of supplies of bottled glass containers, color is indicated in 95% of cases, and absent in 5% of cases.

Another feature of the formation of customs statistics is the presence of reverse sheets.

Have you ever seen a customs declaration in which the text in the “description of goods” column did not fit completely and was transferred to the back of the document? Customs statistics also contain all these downsides. True, they create their own separate databases with their own separate costs.

It often happens that the most valuable information about brands, modifications, and models is written on the back pages. Therefore, if you are interested, for example, in analyzing the medical equipment market, then know that you cannot do without back sheets.

How to use customs statistics to calculate a promising market niche

For many trading houses, holdings and organizations, the results of processing customs statistics can serve as a real business navigator. Often companies have a product range consisting of a long list of items. The more products are in your area of ​​attention, the more difficult it is to determine among them the direction of greatest demand. Let's take special equipment as an example. Before discussing which road roller will sell better, it doesn’t hurt to first figure out in which direction the demand for equipment has changed in general. From rollers to motor graders? Or to forklifts? Or to excavators?

To help foreign trade participants identify general trends, marketing companies create industry newsletters. In them, they make a general comparison of different product areas: how their volumes grow or fall, their pace. Let's give an example with the same special equipment. We prepare quarterly newsletters on this topic, along with others.

For example, from the bulletin for the 4th quarter of 2012, you can see that compared to the 3rd quarter, the volume of imports of road rollers fell by 36%, the import of loader cranes remained practically unchanged (+1.3%), but the volume of deliveries of front loaders increased by 47%. Knowing this, the importer in 2013 will definitely place a bet on purchasing not rollers, but loaders in the fall. If we talk about other types of special equipment, then from the bulletin it is clear that the situation was like this:

1. Front loaders +47%
2. Motor graders +33%
3. Bulldozers +7.3%
4. Loader cranes +1.3%
5. Excavators - 8%
6. Backhoe loaders - 19%
7. Truck cranes - 32%
8. Road rollers - 36%
9. Agricultural tractors - 46%

Well, having decided on the directions of demand growth, we can now move further from the general to the specific. And the next step may be to determine the most popular brand of popular equipment. In our case with front loaders, this is SDLG. Well, within the brand you can also recognize the best-selling model: SDLG LG936L (see picture).

The most popular models of imported front loaders in the 4th quarter of 2012

There is another way to find export-import gold mines. Constantly existing in a state of competition, many businessmen dream of finding a market niche where the competition is not yet so high, and the demand for the product is constantly (i.e. over several quarters and even years) growing. After all, if demand grows, it means sales increase and incomes grow. It’s easy to say - find an attractive niche where demand is growing steadily. But how to find it?

Here again statistics can help. It will tell you which products have begun to be sold or produced at a very fast pace. This fact will indicate growing demand. It's even better if you can make sure that high growth rates are sustained. Then it’s definitely worth taking a closer look at this niche.

We already know that the HS classifier contains more than 11 thousand items of goods. If you periodically review all these items to select the most attractive items from the point of view of trade growth, you will get a useful list. It can be “cut” according to industry. The result will be periodically (quarterly) updated lists of growing market niches in the form of a list of HS codes and numbers confirming this growth.

Look at this example:

There are such niches in almost every industry. Some are characterized by stable growth over several years. By the way, the database of promising market niches is useful not only for those who are looking for a new profitable niche, but also for those who are already participants in growing markets. Helps you compare your pace with the market rate so as not to lose your achieved competitive position. Oddly enough, the threat of losing market share is associated not with the period of its decline, but with the period of growth. For example, if the market has grown significantly, and you are working at your usual pace, this means that you have seriously lost your competitive position. Let’s say your market share is 5%, you work smoothly and calmly, and the market doubles at this time. If you find yourself on the sidelines of this process, then simple arithmetic shows that you now only own ..... 2.5 percent. Like this.

How a simple analysis of customs data prevented the loss of 50,000 euros.

These stories were told to me by our regular customers, for whom business had been going steadily for more than one year, and suddenly...

First story.

Niche: Import of meat.

The Russian importer worked under a contract for the supply of meat to Moscow with an Austrian company.

Anyone who deals with meat knows that world prices for this product periodically fluctuate, and fluctuate significantly. And our importer managed to conclude a long-term contract with a fixed price. He, of course, was worried whether his partner would demand that the contract be redone, but the partner...... fell silent. At all. No, he says, I have more meat, and therefore I have nothing to supply to Russia.

Somehow it all seemed strange to the importer, and in our next report, in three seconds, he found his partner in the rating of Austrian shippers. Well, then in the supply table I discovered that the Austrians had already become friends with another Moscow company and, of course, at a more favorable price for themselves. What can I say? Not all Europeans are sirs, and not all of them are familiar with business ethics.

But that’s what the rating is for, so that the leading suppliers can be quickly selected and analyzed. Others were discovered, with other very good and stable prices. One “but” - they worked with Russia on a large scale, in very large quantities and with very serious partners.

But our customers are brave people, they asked for negotiations with them and, with the help of our report, made an indelible impression (market experts, and that’s all!). They reported that at an acceptable price they were ready to conclude a contract for the same large volumes, albeit with a slight deferment of payments. This deferment was later very useful to them in Moscow in order to quickly build relationships with their customers on prepayment and close all obligations.

Conclusion: analyzing the city market takes not only courage, but also ingenuity.

Second story.

Niche: Import of cat and dog food

Here I will tell the story first hand:

……We recently entered into a contract with a Chinese supplier of pet treats. The contract amount is considerable - 50,000 euros. What a shock I experienced when I discovered in your latest analysis that the Chinese supply our competitors with these same delicacies at a price several times lower than ours. I sent my employees shopping. We discovered that competitors had already put the product on the shelves and did it at a price of 70 rubles. for one package of Chinese delicacies, and we would have to sell the goods for 170 rubles. a piece. I would simply bury my 50,000 euros!

I quickly terminated the contract with the Chinese, although I paid a fine.

But you helped me twice. In your work, I discovered from whom Chinese suppliers purchase goods. I entered into a new contract with the manufacturers directly and won at a price THREE TIMES: instead of 12 euros per 1 kg, I received a price of 4 euros per 1 kg. That's how I ended up winning more than 33,000 euros!

General Director of LLC "Konstruktiv" (Moscow) - Olga Kolodina

My conclusion: Start analyzing statistics with ratings and, even if everything is “in chocolate” for you today, select and analyze suppliers and manufacturers who, in difficult times, will be able to support your business or even take it to another level.

We prepare a report on foreign trade activities

• we went over the main and auxiliary parameters of customs statistics;
• we examined how and what ratings of trading participants can be made;
• looked at what additional parameters exist for deliveries;
• It's time to look at the structure of a typical report.

The results of statistical analysis are tables and graphs. However, a brief analytical summary that summarizes the main final figures from the report will be very appropriate at the beginning of the analysis.

Let's look at what typical sections a report consists of for any fixed period of time (month, quarter, year, three years) and give an explanation of the usefulness of the sections.

Well, the report is ready. After scrolling through it, it quickly becomes clear who is the No. 1 leader today, what product is in greatest demand (who is the leader in production), what prices can be set, and with whom else to “partner.”

You know everything, use everything for your promotion. When will a new report be needed now? How often do I update the data? I will give examples when, in my opinion, monthly updates are desirable:

1. If the level of competition is very high. It’s better to play it safe and monitor changes monthly.
2. If prices fluctuate frequently. Similar recommendation.
3. If the market has entered a crisis. All connections collapse, suppliers fail and disappear.

Let's say time has passed and you updated the information. It is always useful to know how data has changed compared to the previous period. But there is a lot of data. How can I make sure that all the changes are detected very quickly: I take it - I look through it - I understand - I act? Report formats can help with this.

Comparing “before” and “after”

Marketing, marketing analysis is always a comparison. What's better, what's worse. What is useful, what is dangerous. Therefore, market monitoring is a common thing for a marketer.

What should monitoring results look like? How to prepare a monthly or quarterly report so that it is immediately clear what has changed compared to the previous period? To do this, we introduce the following sections into the report:

Thus, these three new sections will allow you to quickly find out who, although not No. 1 on the market today, has very actively begun to move others. Also, if you yourself are a member of the leading seven, you will immediately find out who you have bypassed and who is ahead of you.

Video lesson: Comparing “before” and “after”

Analysis of prices and prospects

So, we have a periodically updated report consisting of 10 sections.

However, it can be expanded by analyzing prices and market development prospects.

Let's look at the possible sections.

1. Table and graph of changes in average contract prices per unit of goods

Price is the most important parameter of analysis. It is clear that first of all your eye will look for the prices of your closest competitors and compare them with your own prices. However, understanding the general trend, you see, is also useful.

The simplest option for analyzing prices in a niche is to monitor changes in the average cost per unit of volume (price for 1 kg, 1 liter, 1 piece). To derive it, we divide the cost of each batch of goods by its volume, and then display the average value for the entire niche. You can also display average prices separately for supplying countries, supplying companies and purchasing companies. You can even highlight the cheapest or most expensive average contract prices among suppliers and buyers. And so you can observe the cases of minimum and maximum prices for each month, quarter, year.

But this simplest method of observation may not be useful to anyone. For example, if there is a lot of groupage cargo, then the average price of a shipment is like the average temperature in a hospital.

Price analysis can be performed in another way. It is more complex, I would say, for “advanced” users of customs statistics. Let me warn you, for a beginner it can become difficult and, therefore, boring. Therefore, you can skip this chapter for now. Come back to it later. In short, it's up to you to decide.

So, we divide all deliveries into three sub-niches: goods of the highest price segment, middle price segment and low price segment. In this version of the analysis, when dividing supplies into three groups, we recommend removing all prohibitively high or low prices from the total array of supplies. Thus, we clear the statistics from cases of “non-market” prices.

Let, for example, we have data for a year. We draw a table of 12 lines (12 months of the year) and opposite each month we indicate three options for average contract prices - in the segment of high prices, low prices and average prices. We use this data to build graphs. The figure shows three graphs that clearly show price dynamics in each group.

You can determine which price group your product belongs to. Next, you focus on your group and study in depth only your segment: products, competitors, and thus save valuable time.

The next two sections are useful for seasonal markets. I would classify them as “exotic”. If you want to win over management with a perfectly executed analysis of foreign economic activities, then complete them. Their main benefit is a visual display of seasonal price fluctuations.

2. Table of changes in price seasonality indices

You track the seasonality index - this is the percentage of price deviation in a particular month from the average. You can do this within your sub-niche.

3. Graphs of the dynamics of the price seasonality index

Demonstrate price differences. As a result, they help plan measures to combat seasonality and determine the best periods for purchasing or selling goods.

Look at the example charts: the charts, of course, quickly and clearly make it clear how prices jump from month to month. For example, from these graphs it is clear that low prices jump strongly only in December, and high prices - in all seasons of the year. This data will be useful to understand which sub-niche is best to work in.

4. Import/export forecast table and graphs

Here, as in the case of seasonality, it makes sense to build a graph if there is enough data. The more accurate the forecast trend is, the more historical data is available. If the data is only for a couple of months, then discard the section for now.

There is another factor that affects accuracy.

It is known that using Excel you can build as many as four types of forecast trends: linear, exponential, power and logarithmic. However, an “advanced” marketer will be able to identify the most likely trend. This can be done using the method of taking into account seasonal fluctuations. Thus, in the figure, of the four forecast trends, the most accurate one is highlighted.

Step-by-step instructions for using the report to increase sales

As an example and to simplify the presentation of the action plan, we will choose a market niche - “import of rattles.” We will develop an annual plan. Let’s tighten the conditions of our game: let the import of these same rattles not grow recently, but, on the contrary, fall.

So where do we start? From the first step.

Step 1: Analysis of the competitive environment

Let's decide which competitive environment is most interesting to us.

In our example, let us be foreign manufacturers of rattles, or more precisely, the marketing service in its Russian representative office in Moscow. In this case, we will be interested in the rating of manufacturers, and it is from this that we will write out our market share. We also list the shares occupied by the closest three to four competitors on the list.

Step 2. Formulate a goal

We set the percentage by which we want to increase our share of the foreign trade market in the coming year. This percentage is the primary hypothesis. We will clarify it later. Well, now, let’s say, for example, we want our market share to increase by 2% and become equal to 7%. This figure, as I have already said, can be clarified and adjusted in the course of our further analysis. But it is precisely this that we define as the starting point, the goal of all actions on the market.

Step 3. Decide who we will expand with

Three or four closest competitors in terms of rating were selected. But it would be useful to double-check the correctness of this selection. Some may be removed, some may be added. We proceed from the understanding that it is easier to expand at the expense of those who are weakening and losing their positions (who are located below the X-axis on the chart of changes in market shares of leading manufacturers). In the figure below these are firms 6 and 7.

In the same report, we check whether the nominated competitors are new to the market. In the general list they are highlighted in a contrasting color. Anything new requires special attention! After all, it may turn out that a large foreign corporation has decided to enter the Russian market. It won't be easy to compete with her. If the newcomer is inexperienced and small, then it will be easier to compete with him.

Click on the image to enlarge it

After we have clarified the applicants through whom we will expand, we decide from whom we will “bite off” how many percent.

In total, our two percent should be exactly what we get. How can I do that? Of course, by explaining to the partners of these same competitors that they should entrust their money to us. Who will do it? Our sales service.

Step 4: Create a marketing battle plan.

So, we are preparing a task for the sales service, according to which colleagues must prepare a certificate within a week: at the expense of which clients and what estimated contract volumes we can achieve the coveted figure of 7%. To ensure that our colleagues have all the necessary data to complete their task, we familiarize them with the report. First of all, with a rating of recipients and an analytical table of foreign trade operations. From this report they will gather data for reflection: which importer to negotiate with this week, with whom next week. The goal is to conclude new contracts.

Step 5: Pre-production.

We request the following data from the production service: what needs to be improved in our own products so that they are not inferior to those competitors that we noted in the report. If they are not inferior anyway, then please clarify – due to what (materials, technologies). To help, we send our colleagues the table “Analysis of Foreign Trade Operations”, where they can obtain information about imported goods (rattles). Additional work may happen here: if the description of the product is very limited, then you will have to scour the Internet to get to know the competitors’ assortment in more detail.

Step 6: Calculate prices.

When the production workers prepare their answer, we send it to the pricing service. After all, the final commercial proposal that the sales service will send to potential clients must win in terms of the maximum number of parameters. These also include prices. We study contracts. We determine what needs to be done to reach similar numbers. Is it possible to do this? That's the question this service needs to answer.

Within a given time frame, we collect prepared responses from colleagues from various departments of the company. Based on them, we prepare a refined marketing plan. To protect and approve the plan, we initiate a meeting of the director with the heads of all involved services. The result of the meeting is agreed upon work plans for each service with numbers and dates. All of them will be subordinated to one goal - increasing market share.