Competitive Intelligence

Tactical, Operational & Strategic Analysis of Markets, Competitors & Industries

All Blog Posts Tagged 'CI' (43)

CI Fellows 2021 Summit: In Technology We Trust?!

This year's summit produced by  the CI Fellows is sure to be of interest and value to members. You can find ou more about the content, speakers and topics to be covered here: CI Fellows 2021 Summit

I'm really excited about this, and especially to be having a fireside chat conversation with renowned public interest technologist and data governance guru Rohan…

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Added by Craig S. Fleisher on October 7, 2021 at 9:37am — No Comments

Do you measure customer loyalty?

Customer is King – the raison d'être of every business. It is therefore imperative for all businesses to listen to their customers.

Customer loyalty in particular is of immense value to any company. High customer loyalty indicates that your company is doing a key part of its job right. It also means that you have to try less…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on March 6, 2014 at 2:38am — No Comments

Special Book Offer - Confidential: Business Secrets, Getting Theirs - Keeping Yours by John Nolan

"Confidential: Business Secrets, Getting Theirs - Keeping Yours"

John Nolan has released a limited reprint of his book Confidential: Business Secrets, Getting Theirs - Keeping Yours (ISBN 097213560X). The title is on many…

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Added by Tony Steele on April 1, 2013 at 10:30am — 20 Comments

Why a CI framework is not dispensable

In most companies in India, competitive intelligence is not primarily done by CI professionals. Many functions are interested in competitive intelligence. Sales, marketing, strategy, product development, are the common ones. But finance, HR , procurement and others also need it. They all generally gather competitive information as part of their regular functional roles .

The users of the intelligence (and analysis) are heads of these functions, business heads, and of…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on August 10, 2012 at 3:09am — No Comments

Lest you topple…

Topple rate is a measure that a McKinsey consultant devised in 2007. It measures the rate at which companies lose their leadership position or switch ranks. The ranking in this context is done on the basis of return on assets (ROA). For example, if the topple rate is 40%, it means that if you an industry leader, there is a 40% chance that you will lose your position to another firm in a given year. The topple rate is also a measure of the ability of a company to sustain its competitive…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on August 1, 2012 at 7:45am — No Comments

Tools for effective strategy formulation

Most companies undertake annual strategy planning exercises (STRAP) to lay down the plan for the coming year. They undertake market/business research and competitive intelligence to support their planning.

Some of this research is backward looking – How much did the market grow last year? What did my competitors do? Some research is forward looking – How much is the market likely to grow next year? What plans have my competitors announced? and so on. Excel spreadsheets then used for…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on July 24, 2012 at 6:31am — No Comments

Automobile industry slowdown: Pit stop or pit fall

General Motors India recently announced plans to phase out some of its old luxury models (Optra and Aveo), owing to the current slowdown in the automobile industry. In an industry where workers rarely get any breaks, GM India had observed 2 non productive days last month to address the sudden fall in demand. Overall sales of Volkswagen another global automobile giant fell by 28% in the last 5 months. The sales charts of many prominent players in the industry are telling the same story.… Continue

Added by Ashwin on July 17, 2012 at 11:00pm — No Comments

Ethics of mystery shopping

Any businessman will tell you that knowing how your competitors sell their wares and at what prices is simply good business practice. But how do you get this information?

Is it Ok to do mystery shopping? As in all other aspects of business, while (most times) there is clarity on what  is legal and what is not, there is a lot of ambiguity on what is ethical and what is not.

My friend owns a clothes boutique. Is it unethical for her to browse around in other boutiques to…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on July 13, 2012 at 6:24am — No Comments

Competitive Intelligence: Are you seeking the right answers?

Competitive Intelligence (CI) plays a critical role in formulating an organisation’s business strategy. It can make the difference between winning and losing. However, CI can only live up to this expectation, if it addresses the right questions. Right answers to wrong questions, will be wrong for the organization. What questions should the organization ask in order to win? The answer to this requires clear logical thinking on the part of both, the decision-makers who will use the…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on June 28, 2012 at 12:05am — No Comments

Ethics of using social media for CI

I am baffled by the title of a recent press release from Assocham – “Corporate espionage via social media rampant in India Inc.: Survey”. It is misleading.

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Added by Varsha Chitale on June 21, 2012 at 7:10am — No Comments

Observations on competitive intelligence budgets in India…

All businesses every where undertake some kind of CI; they cannot survive without it. Even  mom and pop stores do – although very informally. In India, it is mainly the large companies and multinationals that have formal competitive intelligence activities.

How do they decide how much formal CI they should do? Here are some observations..

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Added by Varsha Chitale on June 14, 2012 at 3:30am — No Comments

Why politics deserves greater mindshare of CI in India

Politics affects business in very real ways, and this is becoming increasingly apparent in India. In recent weeks, corporations have been screaming hoarse about the impact of poor governance on business. In India governance is related inextricably to politics...

It is the job of competitive intelligence professionals to scrutinize all aspects of the business environment. If politics is a significant part of the environment, then that needs to feature in the analysis too. While CI has…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on May 11, 2012 at 4:39am — No Comments

Back to Basics

Competitive intelligence analysts must frequently remind themselves of their final objective. Time and again, I have seen analysts get so involved in the “activity” they do, that they forget why they do it. They optimise the process, perfect the mechanics, plan the logistics and polish the presentation templates. But they forget to stand back and look at the big picture. When they lose the strategy perspective, they miss the opportunity to make that critical value addition which converts…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on April 25, 2012 at 8:35am — No Comments

Selling competitive intelligence internally

CI teams cannot be efficient, effective and successful without a buy-in from their co-workers at all levels – senior, middle and junior. CI teams face a dual challenge in terms of getting an internal buy-in within an organization.

First, they need to show a good ROI to the senior management in order to justify their very existence. Unless senior management perceives their value in helping the company meet its business objectives, they will a) not be consulted b) not be respected c)…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on April 18, 2012 at 11:46pm — No Comments

Winds Of Change

The nuclear disaster in Fukushima has caused many nations to reconsider their energy policies. The Indo-US nuclear deal that India boasted about until a year back now seems less relevant, as the prospect of having a nuclear plant in the vicinity is likely to trigger protests. The nuclear project plans in India suddenly seem to have become comatose.

With the nuclear plans on hold and thermal power primarily controlled by government. Renewable energy investments which earlier seen only as… Continue

Added by Ashwin on April 4, 2012 at 6:30am — No Comments

Are you harming your company by giving your boss (only) what he wants?

Examples of competitive intelligence failures and blind spots are cited to emphasize the importance and value of CI to an organization. A recent one is the failure of Blockbuster to see opportunity to take its business online – a blunder that cost it its very existence. In India one of the oft quoted example is that of  HLL and Nirma in the 1980s. There are, of course,  many others…

These companies did not have incompetent senior management. They were large companies with deep…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on March 30, 2012 at 5:13am — No Comments

Competitive intelligence and confirmatory intelligence

I understand that competitive intelligence is important. But why are competitive intelligence needs always urgent?  Most companies that approach us for intelligence want it in a tearing hurry.

That some kinds of tactical intelligence is often required immediately is understandable. Strategic intelligence, on the other hand is associated with long term decisions.....

Read more...…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on March 23, 2012 at 4:13am — 2 Comments

Value-for-money comparison of research techniques

When you need research to answer a particular problem, how do you decide whether you will use secondary or primary research? Or, what the mix of the two will be? Do you decide  on the basis of the budget you have available? Do you decide based on what your team is good at? Do you decide on the basis of the time available to you?

To ensure you get value for money (VFM) on your research, you want high quality research, with a fast turnaround time (because time is money) and at…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on March 20, 2012 at 12:10pm — No Comments

Tracking disposable income – Competitive Intelligence for driving sales

Disposable income is a key growth driver for several industries in India such as consumer durables, automobiles, tourism, education, real estate, telecom, entertainment, BFSI and so on.

These industries are interested to know where the disposable income resides by geography, occupation, age, income group and so on, so that they are better able to target their products, sales efforts and marketing campaigns.…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on February 3, 2012 at 2:30am — No Comments

The future is already here - can you read the signals?

“Can you do research and tell me what my key intelligence topic should be?” was a request from a market intelligence analyst to us recently. What he was actually saying, is that he needs pointers on what trends or developments will be relevant to his company going forward, so that he can focus on them and prepare for them now. He wants to identify relevant “weak signals”.

All new trends/ patterns/ macro changes in  technologies, society, economy, etc. start with small shifts in…

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Added by Varsha Chitale on January 24, 2012 at 6:56am — No Comments

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