BA 490
Competitive Intelligence Best Practice
Debbie D. Stevenson
Grantham University
Competitive Intelligence Best Practice Competitive intelligence or competitive information is something that many businesses participate in. Knowing, what and how of the competition offerings compare to similar products on that market or a familiar market can provide many businesses with tools to pull the attention of consumers away from the competition and to spend their money elsewhere. Competitive Intelligence involves the systematic collection and analysis of information about rivals for informing decision making. It has three main purposes:
To forecast competitors’ future strategies and decisions
To predict competitors’ likely reactions to a firm’s strategic initiatives
To determine how competitors’ behavior can be influenced to make it more favorable
One must understand all three purposes, the key requirement to understanding competition. One-quarter of the largest US Corporation has specialist competitive intelligence units. Many companies review the way businesses goes about promoting their products to the public. Often when possible gather public information to help dress an advertising campaign. While analyzing the advertising of your competitors, gathering competitive intelligence which consists of analyzing products that are sold by your competitors. This only requires purchasing some of buying some of the products and testing them. With technology being so advanced, you can now possibly obtain consumer opinion quickly over the internet. It is very easy to gather thoughts and ideas from consumers on what the competition products work and what doesn’t work. Using structured research is also an effective way of analyzing other business. Using mailing campaigns which compares the competitors product with the cheaper product can also yield some great ideas of how successful is your competition.
An, example of
Debbie D. Stevenson
Grantham University
Competitive Intelligence Best Practice Competitive intelligence or competitive information is something that many businesses participate in. Knowing, what and how of the competition offerings compare to similar products on that market or a familiar market can provide many businesses with tools to pull the attention of consumers away from the competition and to spend their money elsewhere. Competitive Intelligence involves the systematic collection and analysis of information about rivals for informing decision making. It has three main purposes:
To forecast competitors’ future strategies and decisions
To predict competitors’ likely reactions to a firm’s strategic initiatives
To determine how competitors’ behavior can be influenced to make it more favorable
One must understand all three purposes, the key requirement to understanding competition. One-quarter of the largest US Corporation has specialist competitive intelligence units. Many companies review the way businesses goes about promoting their products to the public. Often when possible gather public information to help dress an advertising campaign. While analyzing the advertising of your competitors, gathering competitive intelligence which consists of analyzing products that are sold by your competitors. This only requires purchasing some of buying some of the products and testing them. With technology being so advanced, you can now possibly obtain consumer opinion quickly over the internet. It is very easy to gather thoughts and ideas from consumers on what the competition products work and what doesn’t work. Using structured research is also an effective way of analyzing other business. Using mailing campaigns which compares the competitors product with the cheaper product can also yield some great ideas of how successful is your competition.
An, example of
References: Contemporary Strategy Analysis, 8th edition, Robert M. Grant www.Techsoup.org