Client Problem

Dutch commodity chemicals company had been selling small quantities in China through a sole distributor for a few years and wanted to do market research and pursue direct selling to customers but did not want to set up a legal entity in China due to inordinate costs compared to addressable market size.

Main objectives for project were to conduct market research on select sectors where client products are used in other markets, identify and engage target customers to create new selling opportunities and strategic marketing including opportunity identification and targeting, segmentation, and product positioning.

Our Solution

Due to client’s niche market and product specialisation, it was determined a dedicated sales manager would yield best results. We screened and qualified several candidates, ultimately finding the ideal candidate within two months of project start. The engineer obtained and analysed past year’s import data for client products and provided complete picture of market size, competitors, distributors.

With a de facto presence in China, client was able to attend industry events, tradeshows and forums to raise awareness of client’s product offering in China, expanding addressable market size beyond original scope.

Successful Result

Working with engineer, created a prospect list of hundreds of companies who were contacted and processed to leads. Sales in first full calendar year exceeded USD 4 million. Following years saw similar growth, reaching almost USD 10 million sales revenue five years into the program.