Customer-Led Strategy Portfolio choices
What stays in the range, and what goes?
Customer-led portfolio decisions establish what each product does for your customers before anything gets cut. Revenue tells you what a line earns. It does not tell you what that line holds together, which customers would leave with it, or which product is quietly the reason people come to you at all. MindMarket finds the roles your products play in real customer behaviour, so that simplifying the range removes cost rather than removing reasons to buy.
THE SITUATION
Is this your situation?
- A rationalisation exercise is under way, and the shortlist of products to cut was built entirely from margin data.
- A low-revenue line has passionate defenders inside the business, and nobody can quite articulate why.
- You suspect one product is bringing people through the door and another is taking the credit for it.
HOW WE WORK
How does MindMarket approach portfolio choices?
- We agree what you are optimising for before anything gets cut. Cutting for cost and cutting for focus lead to different answers, and a portfolio review that has not chosen between them ends up doing neither well. We settle this with your team first.
- We watch how customers choose across the range. We explore how people use and choose across your products, including the ones they mention without buying, because those are often the products doing quiet work that the sales figures never attribute to them.
- We recommend what to keep, what to cut and what to reposition. You get a recommendation for each line, with the customer consequence of each choice spelled out, and a sequence for the changes so the portfolio does not move all at once.
THE DELIVERABLE
What do you get?
- The role each product plays in real customer behaviour, which is a different thing from the role it plays in the revenue table.
- Which lines can go without collateral damage, and which cannot, with the evidence for each.
- The products doing quiet work that your numbers do not attribute to them.
- A sequence for the changes, so you can move step by step and watch what happens.
- All of it as a Decision Case: one short written recommendation on the decision above, with the evidence under each claim, in a form your board can act on.
METHODS
Which research methods do you use for portfolio choices?
Usually central location testing and focus groups, with taste testing for food and drink ranges.
QUESTIONS
Strategy questions, answered straight
How do you decide which products to keep in a range?
We decide by finding out what each product does for customers, not what it earns. Focus groups, central location tests and taste tests show how people use and choose across the range, which lines they mention without buying, and which product is quietly holding a basket together. A line with low revenue can be the reason a customer stays; the sales figures never show that, the conversations do.
How long does a portfolio study take?
A portfolio question on a few uncertain lines runs as First Listen in two to three weeks. A full range review across markets, with a decision workshop on what stays and what goes, runs as Deep Listen, eight to twelve weeks. We test the boundaries where the choice is uncertain, not every line, which keeps the study to a manageable size.
Do we need this if we already have sales data?
Sales data tells you what sold. It does not tell you what the customer would have done if that product had not been there, and that is the question a portfolio cut turns on.
Can you cover a large range?
Yes, by working on the decision rather than on the list. We test the boundaries where the choices are genuinely uncertain, not every single line.
What does portfolio research cost?
Portfolio research is priced per market on our pricing page, with product and taste tests quoted on brief because samples and venues change the cost. Most range decisions run as First Listen. The strategy work is quoted after the framing conversation; your itemised quote arrives within 48 hours.
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