Competitive intelligence
Competitive Intelligence is a special form of Market Intelligence as it typically involves sourcing and gathering information on a continuous basis to enable you to keep track of who your competitors are and what they are doing and planning. Notanant, our Marketing Knowledge System provides competitor intelligence database facilities for collecting, storing and sharing information about competitors through our Gegen subsidiary. Intelligence databases are different from conventional databases because of the different nature of the data.
Because of the danger of accusations of industrial espionage, there are some strict ethical codes about how competitive intelligence can and cannot be carried out.
As Competitive Intelligence is normally carried out on an on-going basis, central focus is in putting together structures that will enable information to be gathered, collated and reviewed in a regular and frequent fashion.
In particular, you should be able to obtain competitive information not just from published information, but also from comments and snippets picked up from customers, suppliers, partners and associates. However, often companies do not have systems in place for this information to be reported, analysed and communicated.
A basic Competitive Intelligence function would include
- monitoring the press and journals for article, press releases and job adverts
- benchmarking competitive products and services
- monitoring and collecting promotional materials
- taking views from customers, suppliers and partners
- monitoring for company reports and analyst reports
- attending exhibitions and conferences and membership of trade associations
- monitoring patents
The key is to be systematic in the way the data is collected, collated and then analysed with a view to communicating any changes in competitor behaviour quickly to those who will need to know. A classic piece of analysis is to monitor a competitor's pricing strategy and product development process to identify when and at what price their next products are going to be launched.
There are a number of tools that can help with this process. Firstly, it is important to have a competitor database to collect this information.
Tradition databases can struggle with with the complexities of competitive data and competitors typically do not provide information in neat boxes to specific formats. In particular competitor information needs to be both structured and unstructured to allow for both analysis and searching. It is important that the database is flexible as markets and the information you collect can change extremely rapidly and consequently it needs to be easy to use and adapt without the need for programming resources.
The database needs to record the date, the source, a summary and details so that the data can be searched and organised to look for trend information. Ideally this will be a web based system so that sales teams can access appropriate information where and when they need to. In addition, this can also be used as a push system, notifying relevant employees when new news comes in that is relevant to their role. dobney.com can provide suitable web-enabled databases that are easy to maintain and use, such as Notanant our market knowledge system which includes a live demonstration competitor database
For help and advice on building customer, competitor or marketing knowledge systems contact info@dobney.com or take a look at Notanant our on-line solution.