I come
from a family business background based in India. The nature of business is
manufacturing and selling different types of chemicals to a variety of
organizations locally and globally. There are numerous companies that use
chemicals in their products and manufacturers like us supply the chemicals. It
is a highly competitive market with several large companies and a huge number
of small players. The main challenge is to tap new markets in the already
mature markets. The chemical industry is a vast industry with a large network.
The
question that arises is how to recognize the next growth in this market and to
expand my company’s network?
Social
Network Analysis helps to find a solution to this problem.
Using
the social network analysis, I can list the companies that use the chemicals in
their products and also their current suppliers. I can then map the list of
chemical manufacturers and the chemicals they produce. The next step would be
to link the companies and manufacturers. By doing this, I can find out which
manufacturer is supplying which company and so on. I can look at the network
density between the company and manufacturers and also can look the suppliers
of the chemical in which my company is specialized and then approach the
company to generate sales for my company. By this way, I can develop a network
that helps me understand the current market situation and also tap the
potential market.
The
data required to draw this network are:
· The chemical manufacturers list
· Chemical product list produced by each manufacturer
· Supplier list of each manufacturer
· Degree of connection between the company and the manufacturer
The
list of manufacturers and the companies could be generated. It is also viable
to find the product list of the manufacturers. But, the real challenge lies in
the generation of supplier list. It is hard to find the customer list of each manufacturer, as the number of players is huge in this industry. It requires a large amount
of effort to gather data of each manufacturer.
Once the network map is generated, it can be
used to find the potential market and I can then focus my sales to get new accounts.
Thus Social Network Analysis will help me grow my company in a highly
competitive market without even starting a price war with other manufacturers.
1 comment:
You're on the right track. You'd have to start with a small sample, and you'd have to figure out what the most useful network to study would be. What you discuss sounds more like a supply-chain analysis than an SNA. You need to think of the right question that will lead to the outcome you want. For instance, is there some pattern of relationship between suppliers and customers that comes from family or other kinship-type relationships like education? Geography (proximity?) Many ways to approach it.
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