Competitor Intelligence

Businesses now operate in a world in which information is more readily and publicly available than ever before.

Thanks to the development of the Internet, information on market trends, legislation, customers, suppliers, competitors, distributors, product development and almost every other conceivable topic is available at the click of a mouse.

Despite this trend, it is often the most valuable information which cannot be found online. An example of this is competitor intelligence, regarded by most information users as the most difficult type of information to acquire.

Aricles, case studies and white papers on competitive intelligence research are shown below:

 

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Brand Equity Research: Net Value Score - The Metric For Judging A Company's Success

Introduction – Transcending The Net Promoter Score A golf handicap, an IQ score, someone’s age – we are always looking for simple metrics that tell a story, provide an explanation, or offer...

White Paper: Rehearsing The Future - Making Better Strategic Decisions

Before developing a strategy, organisations need to analyse and understand their environment, both as it is now and as it will be. The major focus of strategic decision-making is how best to ensure a fit ...

Competitor Intelligence Research & Market Intelligence White Paper

Businesses now operate in a world in which information is more readily and publicly available than ever before.  Thanks to the development of the Internet, information on market trends, ...

Article: Business Models And Competitive Advantage

High growth depends on how you set yourself up to deliver value into the market. Colin Mason at the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Strathclyde and Ross Brown at Scottish Enterprise report on how fast-growth enterprises design their business models. The commercial landscape is littered with examples of firms with innovative products or services which failed because they could not achieve profitability – typically either they could not attract sufficient customers or were based on unsound economics. A...

Article: How To Compete Against Fast-Moving, Innovative Competitors

Entrepreneurs are now having to learn to play by a different set of rules, says Allison McSparron-Edwards, Managing Director of Consultrix Ltd The strength of destabilizing forces such as digitization, globalization and deregulation are gathering pace and affecting all businesses, making it harder than ever to plan for the future. Competition from Brazil, India and China is intensifying all the time but in new and different ways. These new entrepreneurs are quick to identify market opportunities, do not feel tied to the old ways of doing things and seem...

Article: Winning New Business

In a downturn, you have to adopt the right state of mind, says Renne Botham at Touchstone Growth Running a business is a challenge, like no other. Chances are you spend more time at work than you do at home; you can at times be more in touch with your colleagues than with your friends; and with modern technology, a need to know what is going on when you are not at work, may give you little space for ‘you’ time! Who said it would be easy? And to compound it there is the ‘R’ word! Recession is very real; however, it can also be a mantra for...

Article: Market Intelligence

Nick Hague discusses three steps to powerful market intelligence Take a minute to think what it would be like if you had just a handful of customers and you intimately knew everything there was to know about them from their names and personal background through to their differing business needs. Just like a market trader who has a continuous finger on the pulse of customer preference, direct contact with customers allows a business owner to quickly evaluate what he is doing right or where he is going wrong. Such informal feedback is valuable in any...

Article: Innovate or Die – Create Powerful Customer Insights

We are now over half way through 2011 and hopefully you are reading this with your company having survived one of the deepest recessions in history! However, there has been a lot of talk about the fear of a double-dip recession (one in three Finance Directors believe the economy will fall back into recession, according to the survey of FTSE 100 and 250 companies by Deloitte; July 2011). An evolving market It has always been assumed that marketing expenditure is one of the first things to be cut in the time of a recession and yet...

Article: Profiling The Competition

It's so easy to do, and so useful, that it's amazing more companies don't do it. If you are the manager of a successful football team drawn to play against a top European side in a vital match, how would you plan your campaign to win the match? Naturally you would ensure your men are at the peak of physical condition. But that alone would not be enough. You would need to know as much as possible about the opposing team - their strong and weak points; their characteristic attacking and defensive strategies; you would undoubtedly consider the skills and...

Article: Market Research And Sales Managers

The essential element of the sales manager's survival kit is good information, particularly in four areas: the company's sales, the structure of' the market, detailed knowledge of buyers and the strengths and weaknesses of the company vis-a-vis the competition. Know The Company's Sales Every company is sitting on a wealth of information which need not be difficult to revamp into a form which is useful. The first requirement is very simple: a regular (at least monthly) list of the company’s top twenty customers showing their purchases for the latest...