Executive Research Memo #3 – TAM, SAM, SOM, and Competitor Analysis
| To: | The Executive Committee |
| From: | Your Name |
| CC: | Implementation Team |
| Due Date: | |
| Re: | TAM, SAM, SOM and Competitor Analysis |
Reviewing and defining our beachhead market is critical for our success. But not all audiences are equal and not necessarily in all geographies. Our audience must be well-defined and well-targeted to where they live, how they live, and their values.
We have reviewed and edited our beachhead market and end-user profile below for accuracy with additional research and without using a customer “persona.” The risk in using personas is that we might create an ideal audience that might not exist or may exist in such small numbers, and our revenue expectations (and marketing budget) might be overstated.
Our goal in this memo is to share with the executive team how large our beachhead market (SAM – the serviceable addressable market) is within our total addressable market (TAM). From our SAM, we determined how much of the Share of the Market (SOM) we will target within three years.
We have also revised our Value Proposition further to ensure that we are a) targeting the audience with the right benefits and b) “playing the right cards” when entering the industry.
This memo extends our analysis to understand the industry by reviewing where current and future competitors are in meeting current customer needs. It shows how our startup is differentiated and, as we say, “is ready to play ball.”
- An Overview of Your Startup Idea
Revise, strengthen words, and shorten them to make them more powerful than the previous memo. Describe your startup here with what the problem your startup solves is. What is the issue with current providers?
- Your Beachhead Market and the End User Profile
Review your beachhead market to ensure that this section has incorporated prior feedback. Keep brief. Do not just copy and paste the old content. Is your beachhead market logical, and does it exist? Can you map data to it? Review that your end-user profile does exist.
Make sure you revise, shorten, and re-write your beachhead market here. Add a geographic criterion here to ensure that you have targeted the right set of values. This is key to your success. Once again, you may use age brackets and income ranges, but… you must be realistic and validate. Do not use averages! They are misleading and can easily be skewed by a higher number.
- Your Value Proposition – Two More Versions
Re-write two more revised value proposition statements per the format mentioned in the class slides and feedback from homework incorporating your Human Centered Design features and word changes to fully incorporate what you want to truly express about the benefits of your startup’s product or service.
Make your vision as charismatic, inspiring as possible, and relevant to the audience.
- TAM, SAM, and SOM Table
In Excel, build out a lovely professional-looking table with your beachhead market’s TAM, SAM, and SOM formatted professionally and efficiently read with calculations for each step from TAM to SAM.
- TAM is the total size of your industry or the size of your product category. Look under the Statista database to find this number or research your industry size under marketing databases within Bobst Library.
- SAM is your calculating the size of the beachhead market using the criteria you spelled out in the End-User Profile. Seek out those data points of the End-User Profile to help you narrow the TAM to the SAM by multiplying that % by your TAM to help narrow and come up with the size of the beachhead market.
- SOM is based on your research and confidence in your product or service design; estimate a Share of the Market (SOM) that you want to target. This % share will translate into a $ share that you will use as a revenue target between 3 and 5 years from now in the forecasting assignment later in the class.
Make sure that Excel table lines have been deleted by coloring the cells with white color. Also, make sure titles are clear to read and centered. All business formatting requirements also apply to this table, including font, centering the table in this document, and using footnotes to describe where the data came from.
Examples from prior classes have been shown to help you design the table.
A Word on Bobst Library Data Services
Bobst Library has a very extensive data analysis set of tools. These tools are extremely powerful in market research and your careers if you get certified in them (i.e., ArcGIS). Right now, Bobst Library services are being transitioned to online, and questions can be asked via Zoom. Here are a few links to help you create infographics and data tables potentially for helping your narrow your audience or further define them.
The data sets are incredibly deep, where you can change criteria and immediately show a different visual map. These links below are only just the beginning.
You should contact them via email to make an appointment to help you get started. They are very lovely and helpful.
- TAM, SAM, and SOM Analysis
Describe the assumptions and calculations found in the table above. Use bulletpoints to describe where the data came from and the analysis. Does your SAM emulate the details in the end-user profile of the beachhead market?
- Competitive Analysis
Research two key criteria necessary in the purchase decision for your beachhead customers and describe why. Define the criteria so that you can use them to plot an X and Y graph.
Identify and describe 5-10 current and potential future competitors. Make a table of your competitors with columns on their product, product features, quality, price (or price range), and customer ratings.
Using the two key criteria in an X and Y graph (say in PowerPoint), plot the current and future competitors you will have to confront when introducing your product or service. Yes, you must design a graph like the examples in the class handout and estimate where they are on the graph. Make sure you plot where your startup will be located on the chart!
Once the graph is done, please copy and paste it as a PDF picture into this Word document.
This graph should help you see whether you are differentiated from your competitors and force you to re-think what space (on the chart) a) has room for you to enter and b) is a valid entry point with the features you have provided.
Memo Checklist and Instructions:
- Use only this Word document template to complete the assignment. Do not start a new document.
- Replace blue font with the required text mentioned.
- Answer the questions in grey font under each section, then delete the grey text after you have completed that section.
- Convert grey font into black font for your content and paragraphs.
- Format this memo to business writing requirements:
- Helvetica Neue / Arial, 12-point font, single spacing, short paragraphs.
- One line space between paragraphs, full justified, no indents.
- Write complete sentences for each section. Use bullet points, when necessary, in this memo.
- Use the Grammarly app to check and review your writing and grammar.
- Do a spell check in Word to catch spelling and format errors.
- Keep paragraphs for each section short (and easy to read) and not excessively long.
- Convert the memo to PDF using the Print function to “printing to PDF” for submission.
- Make sure you use EndNote to create folders to organize your research, as it will help you with the MLA format bibliography you need to produce at the end of this document.
- The bibliography should start on a separate page at the end of this memo.
- You must have at least 20 sources for this memo in MLA format. Each source single spaced, and a blank line space between each listed source.
- Delete each bullet point in this checklist as you complete it.
- Make sure the whole checklist is deleted before submission.
- Finally, talk out your memo in a private room to catch errors and make quality edits.
Bibliography
