Market Placement
Identify Key Players
A good place to start is identifying the stakeholders that are impacted or influence your commercial waste service. By understanding who these people are and how they interact with your service, their views will help shape your service delivery.
(Download the Stakeholder Assessment template)
Internal View
Customer feedback is important for commercial waste services because it:
- provides valuable insights into what is working well in your commercial waste service and what should be done to make the experience better
- helps the LA understand what their customers want and need
- allows the LA to identify areas where they can improve their products or services
- makes customers feel involved and important
- helps the LA monitor customer satisfaction.
Customers (current and past) are often willing to talk to LAs about their experience of the commercial waste service and this information can help improve all aspects of the service delivery. It is good practise to ask any customer which wishes to exit their contract for feedback. Many commercial waste services conduct annual surveys to gauge a customer satisfaction level. A high score can provide valuable feedback to promote the service, whilst insights from negative comments can be used to identify and address issues.
Understanding what the customer thinks of the commercial waste services offered by the LA can inform the future strategy.
External View
As well as understanding what your customers think of you, it is important to know how you compare to others within the market you operate. By undertaking a market review of the private waste collectors in your area, you can consider what choices a customer has when considering a commercial waste service.
The assessment will provide you with a detail of who you are competing against with an aim to identify barriers to entry and/or identify market concentrations to avoid or target.
A strong external market review should consider:
- Who is the competition?
- How stable is the competition in the area?
- How is the market share made up?
- What do they offer that is the same?
- What do they offer which is different?
- What do they charge and how does their pricing structure work (noting this information is closely guarded by competitors)
- Identify potential opportunities and limitations in the market e.g food waste collections
- Identify and take advantage of any effective new technologies and innovation
- Why would a customer choose them over you?
- How do they win new customers? e.g. discounts
- Any trends in the market e.g customers want to recycle more.
Competitor information can be difficult to obtain, but some information may be available via online research.
This information can inform choices on how you shape your service to compete in your local marketplace.
Horizon Scanning
When looking at service change it is good to have one eye on the future and consider how any potential changes may impact on the commercial waste service.
Tactical
- How will you respond to the needs of the market?
- How will you stay competitive?
- Future vehicle and infrastructure capacities
Strategic
- How will you monitor the competition?
- Possible future areas of growth or income
- The political and corporate landscape
Policy/Legal
- Deposit return schemes will change volumes and materials collected
- Emissions Trading schemes will change cost models and tonnages
- Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging, whilst not directly aimed at commercial waste collections, may change the composition of materials placed on the market
- Simpler Recycling (England) and the Workplace Recycling regulations (Wales)
- New materials such as flexible plastics