Modeling The Dynamics Of Market Potential For Spaceborne Remote Sensing Data Services

Abstract

Spaceborne Remote Sensing, the observation of the features on ground from orbiting satellites is one of the expanding business areas of international space business, attracting the analysis of the markets and the growth patterns in the international arena. Whatever be the product/service, it is important for the market players to know the market characteristics to draw up marketing strategy and defining marketing mix, which becomes important for Remote Sensing services as well without an exception. The market for Remote Sensing data and services is influenced by a multitude of factors, which may seem unrelated at the outset. These may be Socio-Economic and Natural Resources related variables in addition to the expected product/market related variables. Hence the research work to model the market dynamics is taken up with the objectives of: 1)To identify factors influencing the market potential for Remote Sensing Data services 2)To model the relationship between these factors and the market potential 3)To validate and verify the model developed

The analysis was carried out with 82 valid responses from respondents spread across 17 countries where Remote Sensing market is prevailing. A broad spectrum of economic, political, social, natural, and geographic variables believed to be influencing the Remote Sensing requirements were enumerated and validated through pilot study. Raw values for the variables were obtained from secondary sources and relative importance of these variables was determined through primary survey. The variables were synthesised into factors and captured into a regression model to arrive at the market potential index. This is statistically validated and also verified with market potential of a known country market, India. The analysis and results revealed that, market dynamics influencing market potential for Spaceborne Remote Sensing Data can be synthesised as the following three factors, explaining 80% of the variance in the market potential. (i)Politico Developmental factor-variables border related (Number of border countries, Border length, level of Border Disputes, Energy Production & Consumption, Economy and Information & Communication Infrastructure) (ii)Geo-Natural factor: represented by extent of Natural Resources, Energy Reserves etc. (iii)Market/Product related factor variables like product features, level of competition, availability of substitutes, current market position, and growth rate etc. The emergence of variables representing the developmental aspects on one side and political aspects on the other, as important factor is the outcome formally brought to recognition by the study. This is manifesting the growing importance of developmental activities and theatres of war as important additional market drivers in high and very-high resolution data services across the globe, in addition to the traditional applications like natural resources monitoring and management.