Strategic marketing investigations and intelligence
These projects support our clients in:
- Strategic planning
- Existing business areas
- New product opportunities
- New market opportunities
- Appraisal of potential acquisitions
- Performance measurement.
- Clear understanding of customers’ needs – especially those that are unmet.
- Optimising value propositions for successful competitive advantage.
We combine our technical expertise with a broader knowledge of the competitive, social, environmental and regulatory context of markets to provide our clients with information to support management decisions so that they will improve their ability to compete effectively in their markets. In particular they enable decisions to be made in two critical areas:
- Which markets to be in.
- How to gain real, sustainable competitive advantage in them.
Data on market sizes, price levels, growth trends and key economic and technical market drivers. This valuable information on the environment in which your company operates supports strategic planning, both in relation to existing business areas and to opportunities for new products, new markets and acquisitions.
Data on competitors’ performance, market shares, distribution channels and market access, against which you can benchmark your own performance, identify key segments and opportunities, and assess potential acquisitions. Your company’s relative market share is a key indicator of its performance in rapidly changing markets and can reveal specific opportunities for competitive advantage.
Segmentation occurs as markets mature. Identifying emerging segments enables focused market positioning to exploit attractive niche segments with growth potential.
We can get to the heart of what present or potential customers’ real needs are. We can also investigate whether and how these needs are being satisfied by your competitors thus potentially identifying new opportunities.
Political and economic changes and the transfer of technologies across disciplines are creating new markets and making some old markets less attractive. Our international experience enables us to identify these market impacts so that you can take timely and effective action to exploit the changes rather than be caught out by them.
With our immense practical knowledge of both the technical and economic characteristics of markets we can make direct and considered recommendations. These provide clients with a robust and reliable basis for informed decision making.
Engineering services
Downley Consultants’ expertise and experience extends across the full range of underground pipe network asset management in projects across the world. We provide knowledge and solutions to restore condition and performance of pipeline assets to meet owners’ key service provision targets. Our solutions enable this to be achieved cost-effectively and at acceptable levels of operational risk. These solutions are provided to network owners, facilities managers, consulting engineers, project managers and contractors.
The networks in which we apply this experience and expertise are:
- Drinking water – distribution and transmission.
- Wastewater & sewerage.
- Storm & surface water.
- Gas – distribution and transmission.
- District heating.
- Oil & energy.
- Industrial:
- Fire mains
- Cooling & process water networks
- Slurry lines
Our network asset management services comprise:
- Asset audit & health check.
- Non-revenue water & leakage investigation.
- Pipeline inspection & investigation.
- Condition & performance assessment.
- Sewer rising main/force main assessment.
- Risk assessment & management.
- Economic evaluation of options.
- Asset management plans: renovation, rehabilitation, replacement and operational & maintenance planning.
- Capital investment & budget planning.