Insights and Tips to Put You Ahead
8 Key Competitive Intelligence Guidelines to Follow
If your company or organization does not have competitive intelligence rules in place or if the rules are filled with lengthy legalese, please consider incorporating these rules that are easy to read and follow: Do not actively seek to obtain, or gain access to, trade secrets belonging to another company or encourage an employee of […]
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What Comes To Mind If Your Field Reps Collect Competitive Intelligence Without Any Guidelines?
Introduction Sometimes marketing departments under pressure to learn about competitive threats, will request that their field staff gather CI without giving any direction. Whether they don’t want to risk turning off team members by imposing too many “rules” or are simply too busy juggling priorities, the outcome will be disappointing. I these situations, CI invariably […]
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What Goes into a Pharma Competitive Intelligence Study; Why Are They So Labour Intensive?
Introduction Executing a Pharma Competitive Intelligence study is anything but straight forward. It’s a combination of investigation, intuition, blending, synthesizing, quick study, obsessing and number crunching. Let’s spell out the steps and time that goes into a typical pharma Competitive Intelligence study. 1. Finalize Questions (10 Hours) Not only do you need to put […]
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Formalizing Your Competitive Intelligence Program? 10 Absolute, Must Do Steps to Avoid “Screwing Up”.
Introduction Are your team members are all over the map when gathering Competitive Intelligence? Do they generate the same or similar information, start from scratch each time they gather Competitive Intelligence or provide unfiltered data that lacks insight? If so, then it’s time to formalize a Competitive Intelligence program. The following steps explain how. Key […]
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New to Competitive Intelligence? Don’t Confuse Competitive Intelligence with Market Research – Avoid these Mistakes
Mistake #1 – Assume Market Research Terminology Example – “Who is on your a customer panel?” Lesson – Competitive Intelligence uses a cross section of buyers, associations, key opinion leaders, former employees, customers, competitors, and any other respondent group who can help. There is no predetermined panel. Mistake #2 – Base Sample Size on […]
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Cutting to the Chase in Competitive Intelligence Analytics
One of the biggest challenges in competitive intelligence is ensuring your findings are verifiable. In competitive intelligence we do not have the option, as with marketing research, where a large sample of respondents ensures you a high level of accuracy. Because you are targeting a small group of highly informed respondents, you would be very […]
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Competitive Intelligence Tip: Creating Your Summary Table
The challenge in competitive intelligence is dealing with lots and lots of fragmented data stemming from a myriad of sources. The best way to do this is by creating and filling a summary table. Sure this sounds like a simple, obvious solution. But the trick is setting up the table and determining what information should be […]
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Need to Formalize Your Competitor Intelligence Process? Here are 10 Essential Steps to Follow.
I have only known a few Canadian companies that set-up a Competitive Intelligence (CI) department with a full time Competitive Intelligence manager or analyst. Instead, what many companies do is formalize key elements of their competitive intelligence process. They take a hands on approach where team members are assigned to carry out specific tasks under […]
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Don’t Confuse a Competitor Mystery Shop for a Traditional Mystery Shop
Comparing a competitor mystery shop to a traditional mystery shop is like comparing apples to oranges. Although they may seem similar at a glance, the two are actually vastly different. The approaches for a competitor mystery shop versus a traditional mystery shop differ significantly in goal, shopper selection, sample size and analysis. Goal Competitor mystery […]
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