Discovering and Meeting Market needs Free Online Assessment, Review.

New Product words on a puzzle piece filling customer needs in a gap or underserved or unserved market demand

This free online business assessment is brought to you buy Alison.com, a site designed to benefit aspiring employees to gain knowledge in their particular field. The course I shall be reviewing in this article is based around a company called Proactiv+, who supply products for damaged skins and acne sufferers. The course presentation is video based, and the Proactiv+ business history and legacy is explained by co founder Dr. Katie Rodan. This presentation is split into 7 sections for students to take notes on.

Benefits of a Partnership.
Discovering and Meeting Market needs.
The Value of effective Market Research.
Raising Money and the Importance of Licensing your product.
Infomercials- A way to reach your Audience.
Owning your Product Formula.
Growing the Organization.

Once the student has absorbed the information given to them from the presentation, they will be given a 10 question multiple choice test, in which they must score 8/10 (80%) in order to pass the course.

The first video the student must watch is of Dr. Rodan explaining what she found the benefits of working within a partnership allowed. Students listen to how her life’s complications and distractions enabled her to share the workload with her partner, and that they were able to compromise when life’s little inconveniences arose.

The second and third video’s revolved around the Market Research and opportunity in the market Dr.Rodan and her partner identified. Both partners are dermatologist’s, so they had the knowledge to know and prove current products and treatments to acne sufferers were only a short term solution to when pimple’s were already visible. For their market research they formed focus groups to raise awareness of acne and to let people know that acne is not always visible and future patients could prevent it now. But they found a large amount of the group disliked the smell of their product and woman were often shy to being tested for acne, as they believed it was associated with ugliness and tended to be shy when being tested. The market research they gathered led them to making the decision of creating a new formula.

In the fourth and fifth videos Dr.Rodan explains how they managed to obtain a company prepared to licence the product and how the infomercial educated potential customers. The product suddenly became a NEED, and not a WANT, which she tries to emphasise throughout the presentation as being their key to success.

The sixth chapter to this course describes how the company managed to own the formula as an asset. In doing this Dr.Rodan and her partner tracked down independent chemists, paid them, and therefore owning the rights to the formula themselves. In the final part of the students learning process Dr.Rodan really lays down the importance of ‘getting along’ and being able to agree to disagree when forming a partnership in business.

Now the learning process is complete, the attention and pressure turns to the student, who must answer 10 questions based on the 7 videos they have just watched. As mentioned before they require 8 correct answers out of 10 in order to pass the examination. The questions vary from the problems the company found from the original formula to why certain company’s turned down their business proposals.

For all intensive purposes this is an effective and informative course into discovering and meeting market needs, I would highly recommend attempting to have a go, at worst you’ll be gaining some vital tips within this industry.

https://alison.com/courses/Discovering-and-Meeting-Market-Needs