Actual Vs Potential Report

The Actual Vs Potential report uses imported customer counts to help you identify the level of potential for detail-level analysis areas in your market area. The analysis is based on the concept that you can plot the ratio of each analysis area’s actual index and market potential index on a grid whose four quadrants each represent one of the following market strategies:

  • Invest – Indicates that you should invest for growth. If your actual penetration is less than or equal to the average and the potential is greater than or equal to the average, your actual performance is below opportunity.
  • Dominate – Indicates that you should continue to dominate and protect these areas. If your actual and potential penetration are greater than or equal to the average penetration, your penetration is high and so is the opportunity.
  • Maintain – Indicates that you should maintain your investment but not expect further growth. Your actual penetration is more than the average, and the potential is less than average—your actual performance is exceeding the expected opportunity based on the area’s demographic composition.
  • Innovate – Indicates that you should minimize your efforts or consider marketing a different product. If your actual and potential penetration are both less than average, this indicates that the opportunity is low.

One of these strategies is recommended for each analysis area in your market area.

Below are the common uses of the Actual Vs Potential report:

  • Compare actual usage to potential usage to identify gaps.
  • Identify opportunities for selling a product or service.
  • Identify analysis areas to find potential locations to promote products or services.
  • Compare usage patterns for your products, competitive products, and similar products in one or more analysis areas.
  • Create an analysis area based on the strategy (Invest, Dominate, Maintain, or Innovate) for the selected profile. You can use the profiled analysis area for further research and reporting.

To generate the Actual vs. Potential report, you need to perform the following:

  1. Select a segmentation system and a base.
  2. Select profile(s).
  3. Select variable(s).
  4. Select a geography or an analysis area and the level of detail to include in your report.
  1. Specify a report output type and the report name.

To Learn More:

Actual vs Potential Report Generation - Walkthrough

Actual vs Potential Report - Interpretation & Calculations