READING THE ROAD AHEAD – 20 YEARS OF AUTOMOTIVE INTELLIGENCE
Numbers can show where an industry has been. The people working in it often reveal where it is going. For Justin Swanepoel of Real Research, combining hard data with on-the-ground intelligence has shaped more than 20 years of work in the automotive sector. Justin’s automotive journey began in 2005 at KA SMART, now Lightstone. Since founding Real Research in 2013, he has focused on South Africa’s repair and coatings sectors, tracking their evolution through both statistics and conversations with panel beaters, distributors, manufacturers, and brands.
Beyond the numbers
Real Research provides clients around the world with market and competitor intelligence, market sizing, customer and distributor research, pricing analysis, customer-experience measurement, mystery shopping and route-to-market analysis. The goal is not simply to produce another report, but to understand why the market is moving: why one brand gains share while another loses it, why customers switch products, and what is changing at industry level before it appears in the headline statistics.
13 years of watching refinish change
Since 2013, Real Research has tracked the South African refinish market, building an exclusive long-term view of brands, pricing, distribution, and customer requirements. This continuity helped identify the growth of the value segment years before the trend became obvious and tracing its rise to pricing pressure, distribution changes and shifting customer needs.
Market intelligence
Market share tells you what happened. Market intelligence helps explain why. Real Research increasingly looks beyond the product to the customer and commercial ecosystem around it from pricing and distribution to buying behaviour and shop-floor realities. For businesses in coatings and repair, seeing these shifts early can mean the difference between reacting to the market and preparing for it.
Justin’s principle remains simple: the people closest to the market usually see change first. Real Research listens, measures and connects the dots, turning those early signals into intelligence that businesses can use before the road ahead becomes obvious. Get in touch with Justin at: justins@realresearch.co.za and stay ahead of the market in your business strategy.
