Varsha Chitale's Blog Posts Tagged 'Competitive' (21)

Continuous product innovation is critical for growth and success, particularly when industry growth is flat and competition is intensifying. But innovation also has risks attached to it – the risk that after investing in its development, customers will not warm up to the new product/service.

Competitive intelligence can help organisations reduce the costs and risks...

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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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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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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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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…

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…

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)…

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.....

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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…

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.…

“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…

This is the season for forecasting – looking at what the new year might bring… Not to be left behind, here are my two bits on what 2012 will bring for competitive intelligence practitioners in India.

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Treating a patient for the wrong ailment will not make the patient better, but may actually harm him. This is as true for an organization as for the human body.

Strategy formulation (and planning) is undertaken at least one a year in most organizations; and more often than that in some organizations.  Strategies are devised for navigating obstacles and challenges to reach the desired business objectives/ goals. However, if the key obstacles and challenges are wrongly identified, how…

While the practice of competitive intelligence is as old as competition and private enterprise itself, it has emerged as a systematic discipline and a profession in the developed economies only in the last 30 years or so. In India its practice is relatively new, but expected to grow very rapidly.

There are several reasons that come to my mind, why competitive intelligence is gaining appeal in corporate India.…

India’s proposed National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) has ambitious objectives of creating employment for  100 million people and taking the share of manufacturing in India from the current 16% to 25% by 2022.

Competitive intelligence is critical for achieving this objective! Several successful economies such as South Korea, China, Taiwan and Brazil have used competitive intelligence for achieving their economic objectives. Hopefully the Indian implementers who will deal with the “how…

Competitive intelligence can be likened to an insurance policy for a company – it helps mitigate risks arising from developments in the external environment by providing timely warnings.

Thanks to heightened global economic uncertainties, the CI  insurance premiums have been rising sharply. Increased risks have also changed the way companies strategise.

What this means for competitive intelligence is that companies will now need to......…