This thesis presents a way for an established Charge Point Operator (CPO) to enter an upcoming market segment. The goal is to design a market entry strategy for Equans e-mobility to enter the corporate Alternating Current (AC) charging sub-market within commercial real estate.
Equans e-mobility is the market leader in public AC charging points. They exploit charging points across The Netherlands, both via governmental tenders and Business-to-Business (B2B) project leads. As they intend to keep their market leader position, Equans e-mobility wants to grow along with upcoming market segments.
The goal for this project is anchored in a future vision: ‘’Obtaining a significant market share in the corporate AC charging sub-market by passively and actively reaching users and decision makers within the target market to stimulate sustainability goals, obtaining certifications and obliging to legislation with exploitation contracts.’’
The double diamond model forms the basis of this project, consisting of two phases of diverging and converging knowledge. In the first diamond, a research question is formulated as ‘’How to strategically enter the corporate AC charging market within commercial real estate while leveraging Equans’ USPs?’’. This question is split into three research areas: internal context, competitive environment, and target market. Through literature research, semi-structured interviews, trade fair observations and critical analysis of existing proposal documents, possible solutions are identified. The results from the first diamond show a need for standardisation, an opportunity to differentiate from competitors through positioning as the highest quality for money, and an opportunity to design a proposal that adheres to customer needs within a market segment.
In the second diamond, a market entry strategy is formulated, accompanied by tools that can be used to implement it. Market segments are formulated to classify which possible customers are strategically optimal, a proposal framework is designed as a tool to standardise communication within the new market segments, and a roadmap is created to show which steps need to be taken to enter the desired market segments. As an example of how these deliverables can be used posters and proposition one-pagers are designed to adhere to two specific market segments. All designs were validated by interviewing customers, internal experts and a competitor, and through a validation workshop.
In conclusion, Equans is recommended to incorporate passive, mass communication channels in a standardised proposal. Throughout their commercial acquisition process, opportunities for standardisation lay in adjusting communication to user and decision influencer market segments. To make their proposal more attractive for these segments, they should emphasise legislation, certifications, benefits of exploitation, and Equans’ credibility as a reliable CPO.
This project shows how a company can increase their efficiency and generate new leads by changing the role of its proposal. Instead of creating a new proposal for each customer lead, standard variations within a proposal are created to adhere directly to a market segment’s needs.