Situation
Bosch Power Tools (BT) struggled to get beyond single-digit market share in North America. Having tried everything from buying retail space in big box stores to NASCAR ads, BT turned to us to help them determine how they could make headway in a market that was proving loyal to an intimidating degree.
Task
We needed to identify a way for Bosch to increase its market share.
Action
After a few exploratory conversations, I knew I needed to broaden the scope of the ask. Bosch was full of intelligent marketers and strategists. They knew the brand better than I could hope to, and I suspected they had yet to leave any ideas that Design Thinking could magically unearth in their near decade of trying.
After some initial conversations, I convinced the President of Power Tools to let me guide his leadership team through a short half-day workshop. Working through activities such as the Wallet exercise, we helped the team loosely understand the value of a broader exploration.
While our skills in this space were strong, our team was being established, and we needed more capacity. I led a partnership with a design agency that would help us execute the research plan. The plan was relatively simple:
- We separated the known groups of relevant customers into Users and Buyers (while they were identical for consumers, large-scale construction orgs differentiated those factors into two roles).
- We sent pairs of researchers to construction sites in Chicago, Detroit, and Atlanta to perform Field Studies.
- We analyzed the results with a project team consisting of the researchers, Power Tool marketers, and several folks from my research team.
Based on that analysis, we were able to bring to light two robust Customer Journey maps, one for Users and One for buyers.
Results
Through the research, we could unpack the roots of brand preferences and the stubborn, long-term implications of those preferences.
Users were quite often introduced to a brand by a mentor or at a trade school. After which, they didn’t just have a preference for a brand. They identified themselves as “DeWalt” or “Milwaukee.”
On the buyers’ side, they were not as concerned with purchasing the tools. They were a small part of their responsibilities. What they cared about was efficiency; two hours spent looking for an adapter was not just lost costs in hourly wages, it was lost time that meant missed inspections and deadlines. For that reason, the buyers’ primary focus was on ensuring that materials were at the correct job site.
Based on the research findings, we launched a few trial balloons unique to North America:
- We scaled back retail consumer spending at big box stores. In-store ads were never going to disrupt well-established brand loyalties.
- For users, we focused on building awareness of Bosch at high-schools and trade schools by sponsoring skills competitions that allowed Bosch to grow with users.
- For buyers, we leveraged our internal Innovation Framework (based on my team’s Design Thinking training married with Business Model Canvas methodologies) to develop an asset management solution that allows buyers to track tools and accessories. That platform has slowly evolved beyond Bosch tools to become a white-label solution that works with other brands.
While Bosch is still making inroads into the North American market, the seeds of growth have been planted with users. The leadership team is recognizing the value of revenue from sources other than power tool sales.
