The First Move in Market Shaping: Building Buying Power to Send a Demand Signal
About this episode
After five guest interviews packed with insights, host Inder Singh takes a step back to explore a key concept in market shaping—and what is often the first move.
Across the interviews this season, regardless of sector, the first move has been remarkably consistent: effective market shaping begins by building, aggregating, and harmonizing demand to create buying power.
And the organizations we've spoken with have done this through a "buying club." A buying club brings together buyers who are each too small to matter on their own, aligns their interests, and turns them into something the market has to respond to.
In this episode, Inder breaks down why forming a buying club is often the first step in effective market shaping, and how to do it well.
Episode quotes
Click a timestamp to jump straight to it in the player.
Buying power isn't just about finding buyers
Buying power isn't just about finding buyers. It's about getting three specific things. First, you need buyers who want the same thing . Every buyer has slightly different preferences, different specifications, different features or functionalities they want. The work is getting them aligned around a shared target, specific enough that a supplier knows what to build.
Why do markets still get stuck even with real demand?
Building, aggregating, and harmonizing demand, often through a buying club, is just the first move. It's not the last one. Because even when you've done all that work, even when the demand is real, even when you've aligned the buyers, markets can still get stuck
The power of a buying club
Without proof that real buyers with real budgets were in the room, the negotiation would have never happened. And the tool that does all of this is a buying club. I know that sounds a little ridiculous. It sounds like getting discounted mayonnaise at Costco. But in practice, it can be enormously powerful. It takes buyers who are each too small to matter on their own and turns them into something the market has to respond to. CHAI called theirs a buying consortium. Kim Carnahan at the Center for Green Market Activation calls hers a buyer alliance. Rich Powell's organization is literally called the Clean Energy Buyers Association. These are different words but the same concept.
Keep listening
More from the show
All episodes →
One More Look at the CHAI Playbook & Why It Matters Today
Over the course of the season, we’ve spoken with a number of guests who led CHAI’s work to reduce prices and shape markets for drugs, diagnostics, and other essential health products. They’ve given us a behind-the-scenes…
Volume Guarantees and the High-Price, Low-Volume Trap with Hema Srinivasan
Hema SrinivasanHema Srinivasan, formerly the Chief Access Officer of MedAccess, a leader of CHAI’s market shaping work, and a former country director for a major pharma company, joins host Inder Singh to discuss how market shaping in g…
CHAI's Approach to Cost Plus Negotiations with Aaron Patillo
Aaron PatilloAaron Patillo was a key member of the Clinton Health Access Initiative's (CHAI) original drug access team. Based in Beijing, he brokered deals with pharmaceutical companies that helped slash the price of HIV/AIDS medicin…