The Market Segmentation Company

The Market Segmentation Company (tMSC) was established in 1995 by Malcolm McDonald, until recently Professor of Marketing and Deputy Director Cranfield University School of Management in the UK, where he is now an Emeritus Professor, and Ian Dunbar, a leading practitioner in customer focused segmentation. We provide a centre of expertise and a resource pool for companies wanting to conduct market segmentation projects and then position these segments at the heart of their marketing strategy.

At the core of our work is the only fully documented practical approach to customer focused segmentation, an approach designed to identify which groups of customers the organization should be targeting and the propositions it should offer in order to generate the greatest contribution to a company's shareholder value.

For organizations where profit is not the goal, our approach will identify the different aspirations of their target groups and therefore the most appropriate strategies.

Successful segmentation projects require a rigorously planned structure as well as time. Our approach provides the structure and the detailed framework for your project plan. In addition, our people can either complement your in-company resources, working alongside the selected team on a segmentation project, or take on the segmentation project on behalf of your company (though we would insist on engaging key personnel at strategically important stages of the project).

What we offer

• Specialist expertise which ensures that the customer insights required for developing successful propositions are secured.
• A clearly defined and rigorously tested process producing tangible commercial results, backed by academic rigour.
• Assignments approached as a partnership, working with our client companies as part of a team, enabling our skills to become embodied in the team and the IP resident within the client company.
• A high level of integrity established through working with our client companies rather than for a consultancy firm.
• Skills in managing and working with external research agencies ensuring that their segmentation research delivers meaningful results.
• Experience with the internal company barriers that can stifle implementation thus ensuring they are addressed at their less damaging stages.

Our approach is based on the belief that the objective of segmentation must be to win and retain profitable customers and this clearly requires the company to understand what propositions it must offer in order to attract the customers it wants. This means that segmentation has to be based around a detailed understanding of the criteria customers use to choose between competing offers. You can then see what each segment is looking for, how good you are at delivering it (competitively) and whether this will produce the profits you require, with profitability measured by customer as opposed to product/service. In summary, segmentation is more productive when built around customer needs, with the challenge being to find better ways of satisfying their needs.

Segments developed along these lines become the underlying structure for your business strategy. It is also how customers divide into segments, and they do not change their behaviour simply because a company chooses to segment them another way.

Market Equity Ltd

The Market Segmentation Company (tMSC) is part of Market Equity Ltd, a company established in 2005 to formally unite tMSC with the company established in 1995 by Malcolm McDonald and Marcus Clark to provide a centre of expertise in the practical implementation of Malcolm McDonald’s strategic marketing planning process. A process captured in his best selling book, ‘Marketing Plans; how to prepare them; how to use them’, now in its fifth edition.

A brief summary of how the two companies work together appears below. It is adapted from the flow chart developed by Malcolm McDonald to explain the marketing domain.

Our expertise in strategic marketing processes is not all that differentiates us. Market Equity Ltd also provides software written specifically for the marketing practitioner, enabling the practitioner to focus on the marketing issues rather than be distracted by the data. This software includes Market Segment Master®, our segmentation package, and EXMAR which provides comprehensive support for the strategic marketing planning process.

Key people

Malcolm McDonald

Malcolm McDonald was until recently Professor of Marketing and Deputy Director Cranfield University School of Management in the UK, with special responsibility for e-business, and is now an Emeritus Professor at the University. He is also the Chairman of Market Equity Ltd, the registered company under which The Market Segmentation Company operates.

Malcolm has written over 35 books in the marketing field, including Marketing Plans: How to prepare them, how to use them (now in its 5th edition, ISBN 0 7506 5625 5) and Market Segmentation: How to do it, how to profit from it, which he co-authored with Ian Dunbar (now in its 3rd edition, ISBN 0 7506 5981 5), both published by Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. Many of his papers have also been published.

See Malcolm McDonald's own website for further details on marketing.

Ian Dunbar

Jointly founded The Market Segmentation Company with Malcolm McDonald and is co-author of Market Segmentation: How to do it, how to profit from it.

Ian runs segmentation workshops and research projects in the UK and internationally and has extensive experience in segmenting markets for a variety of business sectors. Prior to his current role he held senior marketing positions in companies from both the manufacturing and services sectors.

Marcus Clark

Established The Marketing Process Company (now Market Equity Ltd) along with Malcolm McDonald in 1995 and is a leading practitioner in strategic marketing and business planning, with a special interest in exploiting software to model business problems.

Marcus began his career in Intelligent Computer Aided Learning Systems, in both research and development, and his roles have included responsibility for large European R&D programs, future systems strategy for a major systems integrator and responsibility for The European Computer Research Centre in Munich.

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