[AI-Driven New Business Creation] Steps for AI-Driven New Business Development: How to Use AI in Market Analysis

Hello to everyone visiting the Qualiteg blog. I'm Michele. In my work on AI-driven new businesses and marketing, there are certain questions I hear from clients again and again. Through this blog, I would like to offer my own answers to the challenges that anyone considering an AI-based business is likely to face.

Understand the Needs of "the Market Where Your Company Excels"

The first step in market analysis is understanding the problems and needs facing your target market. As for which market to target, many people are fond of blue ocean strategies, but

Qualiteg's view is this:

it is important to go after the markets and customers of the services and products your company already sells.

That is what we believe.

The channels your company has built up over many years of doing business are precisely your assets and your strengths.

Many companies tend to look toward opening up new markets, but in reality, significant growth opportunities often lie dormant within the existing market and customer base. By leveraging AI, you can uncover these opportunities efficiently and make the most of your company's strengths.

That is why building on those strengths and combining them with AI is the key to executing a viable business as you expand.

Here, let me share how AI can help you rediscover your company's strengths.

(1) Analyzing customer feedback:

Use natural language processing (NLP) to analyze large volumes of customer reviews and feedback, and gain an objective picture of the strengths of your products and services.

(2) Leveraging internal data:

Analyze sales data and customer support data with AI to uncover your company's hidden strengths and areas for improvement.

(3) Analyzing the efficiency of business processes:

Use AI to analyze your internal business processes in detail. This lets you identify areas where your operations are particularly efficient compared with other companies and turn them into strengths. For example, if you discover that your order-to-delivery time is far shorter than the industry average, you can use that as a strength in your marketing.

There are many ways to put AI to work.

For example, you can extract and analyze useful information from large volumes of unstructured data such as call center inquiry records, social media posts, online reviews, and forum discussions. Using natural language processing (NLP) technology, you can quantify consumer sentiment and opinions and gain a deeper understanding of market needs.

For something more casual, chatbots for customer support or for internal employee support are probably the easiest to picture.

I recommend starting by organizing the customer information your company already has and identifying your target market.

Innovation is achieved not through isolated measures but through a comprehensive approach. Innovation-Cross, from Qualiteg Inc., is an integrated co-creation support program that captures the full picture of innovation creation. We analyze your company's current state from multiple angles and formulate an innovation strategy that takes every domain into view: strategy, organization, processes, technology, and culture. While stimulating creativity through idea workshops and hackathon planning, we drive the kind of integrated transformation that is "hard to achieve on your own" through open innovation and partner development.

Our experienced specialist consultants, including support for leveraging cutting-edge AI technology, connect individual initiatives and design a co-creation process that generates synergy. Comprehensively raising a company's capacity for innovation from the perspective of overall optimization rather than partial optimization—this holistic approach is the true source of innovation.

Use AI to Strengthen "Competitive Analysis, Including Other Countries"

Once your target market is settled, the next step is to understand the competitive landscape.

You can check the press releases of your direct competitors, of course, but with AI you can analyze in detail what strategies overseas competitors in similar industries are pursuing in the market.

Many of our Japanese corporate clients seem to outsource research to consulting firms because they cannot conduct it in English, Chinese, or other languages. But today, without spending the time and money to commission a consulting firm, you can use AI to analyze, for example, the press releases, websites, and social media activity of leading U.S. companies and gain insights—across multiple languages—into what campaigns they are running and which products and services are gaining popularity.

This allows you to identify gaps in the market and clarify the needs your own products and services should meet.

Forecasting Trends

AI is also highly effective at forecasting market trends. It can be trained to predict future trends from past data. You can also use it to evaluate whether a new business idea fits current market trends, or whether it focuses on an area where demand is likely to grow in the future.

Summary

AI-driven market analysis plays a vital role in the new business development process. AI technology makes it possible to draw useful insights from large volumes of data, which in turn allows you to understand market needs and trends more accurately. Building on this deeper understanding, you can generate new business ideas and bring innovation to the market.

When developing a new business, actively consider using AI in your market analysis and make the most of its powerful analytical capabilities. The many possibilities of AI will speed up your business and take it to the next level.

Thank you very much for reading this column to the end. At Qualiteg, we provide training and consulting on AI technology and on how to plan new businesses. If this has caught your interest, or if you have specific requests, please feel free to contact us via the inquiry form here.

We also run popular workshops for those who want to master the steps of new business creation. The training focuses on having each participant think about the business from an executive's point of view, and the content is designed not only for planners but also for their engineering, design, and marketing counterparts.

We sincerely look forward to hearing from you. And please look forward to the next column, too.