About Allan Consulting : Approach

Allan Consulting’s approach to understanding markets can be expressed in four key principles:

Zero-based analysis. Too many business decisions are based on unquestioned assumptions and long-standing conventional wisdom that may have been useful once but have been invalidated by changes in the business environment. One example is the frequent focus on operating rates as a predictor of pricing. (High operating rates can lead to future price weakness as well as indicating present demand strength.) Examining underlying assumptions and developing the right metrics will often yield fundamental new discoveries about your business. As well, a zero-based analysis reviewing all key assumptions will almost always generate a more nuanced grasp of the interplay of forces driving the business.

Distinguishing between trends and events. An example: newsprint market observers have focused intensely on the movement toward lighter-weight newsprint and narrower rolls as illustrations of publisher efforts to control newsprint costs. These efforts have not always reduced publisher exposure to newsprint as much as the discussion would have implied. More important to understand are trends in pagination of the typical daily newspaper, and their impact on the supply/demand balance of the market. Knowing where to look for significance is the key to finding it.

Linking action plans to desired results. As an example, to optimize a mill’s customer base, we start out by asking a simple question: what do you want from your customers? If a company can identify the three or four things it wants out of its customers, weight the importance of those in relative terms, and then rank all customers and prospects according to their potential to support those goals, it will find an easier path to allocating sales, product development and service efforts to build the optimal customer base.

Identifying opportunity in the midst of seeming chaos. Years ago, high-bright groundwood printing papers were often a second choice for the buyer who couldn’t afford to buy a supercalendered or coated paper. Then, a few producers recognized that their product shared key functional qualities with uncoated freesheet printing papers – but could be a more economical alternative for some end-uses that previously relied on uncoated freesheet. The key insight was the recognition of what customers really needed as opposed to what producers were accustomed to make.