Varsha Chitale's Blog Posts Tagged 'competitive' (12)

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…

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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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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…

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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…

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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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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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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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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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Have you talked to a stranger today? Yes, I know what Little Red Riding Hood’s mother said, but if you are a competitive intelligence analyst, you are not doing a good job if you haven’t!

Competitive intelligence is all about gaining competitive advantage (for your organization). For doing this, you have to be doing something different from what your competitors are doing.…

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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.…

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Most companies want to be and claim to be on the right side of the fine line that demarcates ethical CI from low life espionage. Only, different people and companies draw lines at different places.

Let’s first distinguish between personal and corporate ethical lines. My friend works with the competition. Is it OK if he talks to me about his company when he has had a beer too many, and I share that information internally in my organisation? This lies in the personal space – am I…

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The social media revolution has changed the way we interact with each other. Platforms such as Facebook, Orkut, Linkedin, blogs, forums, online communities, message boards, etc. have become mediums for everyone across the globe to exchange thoughts, ideas and opinions. The power of such a large number of people communicating and collaborating with virtually no barriers is unimaginable.



Among other things, customers are extremely vocal about their likes, dislikes, needs, wants and… Continue