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

There are a large number of companies offering business research services across offshore destinations like India (which is the most favoured one), Malaysia, Philippines and several others. How can you ensure that you select the right offshore research partner?

Do they have relevant expertise and experience?…

It is people who create effective relationships…or destroy them. And this certainly holds true for research offshoring partnerships. No doubt research offshoring relationships need to have robust institutional and process frameworks at their base. You need a comprehensive contract, service level agreements (SLAs), a defined workflow, processes for…

Duh! Isn’t it all about cost?

Perhaps… perhaps not. When one talks about off-shoring, the first thought that pops up is cost arbitrage. Indeed, cost arbitrage between developed countries and most offshore destinations is significant. But this is not the only reason, or in some cases it is not even the most important reason for…

Confused about off-shoring business research? There is so much hype among both, the proponents and opponents of off-shoring that it is hard to distinguish fact from fiction.

Here are a few myths I have encountered in the last more-than-a-decade I have been associated with offshore business research.

1. Off-shoring research is a new phenomenon

I mentioned that I have been connected with business research off-shoring for more than a decade and the practice…

The world is shrinking, but the business environment of an organization is expanding due to globalization on the one hand and convergence in technologies on the other. How are organizations structuring their market intelligence functions to meet this challenge?

ValueNotes is conducting a short survey to understand the current trends in how organizations manage their market intelligence activities.

We will appreciate your participation in this survey, and request 10-15 minutes…

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…

One of the biggest challenges for competitive intelligence (CI) analysts in India is the lack of adequate documentation and statistics. Real estate is among the least documented sectors in India. But a new legislation in the pipeline could change this...

Among the many pending legislations, is the draft Real Estate Regulation and Development Bill, 2013, which is aimed at bringing greater transparency and protection of customers’ interests.

The Bill will require all developers…

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…

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…

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…

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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On the SCIP linkedin group I recently came across a survey to identify the education and career moves that can lead a person into the competitive intelligence discipline.  It was most interesting to note that many of the competitive intelligence practitioners, even in countries more “CI mature” than India, got into their role by accident!

Competitive intelligence in India is a very new discipline. There are few educational courses that lead to a career in CI.…