Gap Analysis

Gap analysis is as old as the hills. People have always been concerned about improvements by assessing where they stand today against a target of what they would like to achieve. However, the term gap analysis is relatively new and was conceived in the 1980s by researchers at the University of Idaho.

Gap analysis seeks to find the difference between the current level of performance of a company and where it would like to be.   Gaps can be sought in different areas:

​ 

• Performance gaps with customers – satisfaction and loyalty scores, delivery times, delivery in part and in full, share of wallet.

• Product gaps – gaps in the product portfolio.

• Segment gaps – groups of customers who are currently not served.

• Geographical gaps – regions or territories that could be supplied but are not at the present.

There may be many other gaps in a business such as resource gaps (shortage of certain personnel to do a job), technology gaps (absence of a technology or process that is limiting efficiencies), and intelligence gaps (lack of knowledge about market) etc.

 The most common gap analysis for marketers is the performance gap with customers.

​

The diagram below shows a typical analysis from customer research showing scores out of 10 which measure the importance of various elements of a company's delivery performance and customers satisfaction with those components (also measured out of 10).  In the example it is clear that there are lots of gaps that needs filling but the biggest is on availability of products. 

The key to gap analysis is finding out what is important to customers and where your performance is relatively poor.

​

Once the gaps have been identified, they should be sorted into quick wins (things that are easy to correct and improve) and those which need substantial resource and will take a long time. This will create a plan of action for improvements.

Steps in gap analysis are as follows:

Step 1: Identify where the problem lies. This could be obvious and have been identified by feedback from the sales team, customers themselves, or from internal analysis.

Step 2: Obtain a measure of current performance. This could be from a customer survey, internal metrics etc.

Step 3: Determine what the performance should be. This should be a target that will meet customer’s expectations or possibly exceed them. However, the target must be realistic and achievable. It should also be a specific measure so it is possible to track and see if the actions are having an effect.

Step 4: Determine a plan for how the gap is going to be filled. Who is going to take action, what resources are needed and over what time period.

Some things to think about:

• The key to gap analysis is finding out what is important to customers and where your performance is relatively poor.

• Once the gaps have been identified, they should be sorted into quick wins (things that are easy to correct and improve) and those which need substantial resource and will take a long time. This will create a plan of action for improvements.

• When there are gaps between expectations and an offer, consider using the Momentum Matrix - https://www.b2bframeworks.com/frameworks/momentum-matrix