Case Study
1 – Quebec Leader in the Financial Sector


Challenge

Our client, a major Quebec-based financial institution, wanted, in a first phase, to acquire tools enabling it to better understand its business clients and the field they evolved in. Moreoever, it was necessary to identify the major challenges and issues in each of these lines of activity (vertical markets) as well as their financial impact on the product and service offering that our client was to make available to them. The other objective pursued consisted in analyzing the current state of financial commitments in the fields studied and measuring the potential of the various territories covered.


Solution

• For each area targeted, a vertical analysis was performed including information pertinent to tracking the businesses and orienting strategic decisions: research and compilation of media and statistical information on the industry at the international, national and provincial levels (PESTE, SWOT).
• Trends, major issues, and industry growth potential.
• Processing of the financial institution’s consolidated database (clientele, commitment levels, potential, penetration).
• Qualitative survey of the industry’s various contributors and stakeholders to complement data collection.
• Targeted firms’ geocoding, points of sale integration, and allocation to territories.
• Territory and local dynamics analysis.


Results

For each territory under study, a report was produced containing, among others, a summarized profile of the trade, a company and head office list, and attractiveness indicators for each micro-market. These records provided a clearer, deeper understanding of the client base as well as tools for orienting marketing initiatives accordingly. Indeed, at the market potential assessment level, the firm holds the information needed to select the sectors to be approached and the means to tailor its offering correspondingly. This report has thus become both a strategic tool regarding how to orient the offering and a prospection tool for attracting new clients and adding value to current clients.


CASE STUDY
2- Quebec Financial Institution


Challenge

Our client, a growing challenger in the Quebec territory, wanted to evaluate possible business volumes resulting from bank branch location decisions in identified markets.


Solution

Based on the bank’s current volumes and the market potential, our team put together an estimation model that enabled to determine market shares before establishing any location initiatives. This model also simulates client transfers as well as market share increases on basis of existing comparable markets:

• drawing up of market areas’ socio-demographic picture and integration of a micro-market proximity indicator;
• estimation of market areas’ and shares’ potentials;
• integration of elements enabling to simulate opening of one or more branches and project potential volumes.


Results

The product delivered is an input-output-type dynamic model that enables to estimate a branch’s potential volumes with a minimum of manipulation considering the socio-demographic and competitive context. Thanks to this model, the client was able to plan its development in the territory as well as avoid strategic opening errors inasmuch as branch opening costs are exorbitant and these choices condition the likelihood of success for branches located in surrounding markets.


CASE STUDY
3 – Financial Institution


Challenge

In order to better orient its investment decisions in the agricultural sector, our client, a very active bank in the Quebec market, wanted to acquire further knowledge of the agricultural market and its potential as well as the relative importance of assets held in that market.


Solution

Thanks to studies published by various organizations, a complete picture of the Quebec commercial agricultural financing market was drawn up:
• agricultural trade’s importance, challenges and issues;
• appraisal of the market’s size by business category;
• distribution of the market’s potential over the Quebec territory;
• estimation of the financing potential and current market shares for the bank and its competitors;
• industry’s trends, major challenges and issues, and growth potential;
• agricultural financing success factors.


Results

This study allowed the client to deepen and broaden its knowledge of this sector, determine challenges and issues around it, and implement a plan to address it. Indeed, a strategic plan was drawn up involving several departments within the firm to approach the agricultural sector and mount an offensive. The latter proved a success, as the firm increased its penetration rate into this sector and continues to model its service and product offering targeted appropriately.