What makes your competitors the choice of some of your
customers?
-
Is it their overall perception of value for money?
-
Quality?
-
Price?
-
The way they do business?
What,
in the eyes of your customers, differentiates "them" from
"you"?
What
do their financials look like? How do your competitors
make money and profits?
-
Do they make their profits from having created better
products and services?
-
Have they established excellent financial deals with
their suppliers?
-
How much cash do they have?
-
Can they react to impacts that you might make in the
marketplace?
-
If they are private, how much funding have they raised
to date? When was it raised?
What
are their future intentions? This is not an easy question
to answer, but it should be one of the most important
questions that you try to answer.
-
In the next three years, which segments will your
competitors be targeting?
- Could
they be acquired or are they looking to acquire?
-
What could they do in order to achieve growth?
Where
do you get all this information?
Need information on a private company? Think you can't get
the information? Many think that because a company is privately
held there is no information available. That is a myth.
The information is out there, sometimes in the most unlikely
places. Here are a few ideas for finding information –
on both public and private companies – ethically:
-
Analyze competitors' websites
-
Subscribe to competitors' newsletters and attend webinars
-
Attend trade shows, exhibits and conferences
-
Talk to receptionists, salespeople and people in human
resources in your competitors' companies.
-
Check out local news outlets
-
Review 10-Ks, 10-Qs, annual reports and credit reports
-
Collect press releases
-
Read general business publications (Forbes, Wall Street
Journal, Economist, etc.) and trade magazines
-
Listen and talk to industry analysts
-
Talk to vendors, partners and customers
-
-
Buy your competitors products
-
How Much Should You Invest?
Unfortunately, the answer to that question is an unsatisfying,
"it depends." The amount of time and money you need to spend
in competitive research depends on your purpose.
If
you are entering new markets, targeting new customers, looking
to acquire or merge with another company, the time and effort
is significantly greater than if you are creating a feature/benefit
matrix. At BEK, we often hear the cry, "it's costs too much."
But the real question is: "Compared to what?"
If
your competitors are consistently beating you, how much
revenue have you lost? How expensive is it to send a sales
rep to the client, and then lose the deal? How much have
easily-avoided strategic and tactical mistakes cost your
company over the past 12-24 months? If you could step around
those mistakes and shut out your competition, what would
that be worth?
Quality
information is the basic component to making solid decisions,
but it isn't free. The public library is good, but it doesn't
cover all the bases, and even the best of business libraries
have a limited amount of information. You need to plan to
invest money and time to flesh out all the details in your
landscape.
How
long will it take?
Competitive analysis is an ongoing process – a discipline,
if you will – rather than a once-a-year or ad hoc
occurrence. Some companies have entire teams dedicated to
the gathering of competitive intelligence.
However,
if you don't have the resources to dedicate to tracking
your competition on a daily basis, don't worry. Depending
on your market, it is possible to successfully monitor your
competition and use the information in decision making if
you update your competitive information on a less frequent
basis. Many companies do thorough updates on a monthly or
quarterly basis.
The
Bottom line
Acquiring competitive information is not easy, and turning
raw data into a meaningful picture of your competition is
an ongoing process. However, you can take solace in the
fact that your competitors have the same challenges as you.
If you have a better view of the competitive landscape,
you can beat them at the game and see the difference that
it makes on your bottom line!
Please
feel free to send us your new product stories and questions.
We encourage you to forward this email to others using the
link below.
Next
month's topic: The Golden Rule: Talking to Customers
For more information, contact BEK Enterprises at:
Web: www.bekteam.com
E-mail:
Phone: 650-631-2800
Did
you enjoy this article? Let us write one for you. Writing
and editing services provided by Ink Communications, Corp.
www.inktc.com.
1
Terry Kendrick and Julian Blackmore, Ten Things You REALLY
Need to Know About Competitors, Competitive Intelligence,
September/October 2001.
2
Cappel, James; Boone, Jeffrey. A Look at the Link between
Competitive Intelligence and Performance, Competitive Intelligence
Review, 6(2), 1995, 15-23.
Copyright
Unless otherwise attributed, all
material is written and edited by Blair Koch, BEK Enterprises.
All rights reserved. 2003
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