"We don't look at our competitors." - Competitive Intelligence2024-03-29T11:23:23Zhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/forum/topics/we-dont-look-at-our?feed=yes&xn_auth=nohttp://www.forbes.com/2010/01…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2010-01-12:2036441:Comment:290882010-01-12T16:02:15.852Zmonica nixonhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/monicanixon32
<a href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/06/innovation-customers-competitors-leadership-managing-marketing.html" target="_blank">http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/06/innovation-customers-competitors-leadership-managing-marketing.html</a>
<a href="http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/06/innovation-customers-competitors-leadership-managing-marketing.html" target="_blank">http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/06/innovation-customers-competitors-leadership-managing-marketing.html</a> I really must support Seena o…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2010-01-12:2036441:Comment:290822010-01-12T04:38:19.583ZVernon Priorhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/VernonPrior
I really must support Seena on this point. There is a great deal of confusion about the difference between competitive and competitor intelligence. In my glossary, I define competitive intelligence as follows: Competitive intelligence is a systematic and ethical programme for gathering, analysing, and managing any combination of data, information, and knowledge concerning the business environment in which a company operates that, when acted upon, will confer a significant competitive advantage…
I really must support Seena on this point. There is a great deal of confusion about the difference between competitive and competitor intelligence. In my glossary, I define competitive intelligence as follows: Competitive intelligence is a systematic and ethical programme for gathering, analysing, and managing any combination of data, information, and knowledge concerning the business environment in which a company operates that, when acted upon, will confer a significant competitive advantage or enable sound decisions to be made. And the business environment as: encompassing all those factors that affect a company's operations; including customers, competitors, suppliers, distributors, industry trends, substitutes, regulations, government activities, the economy, demographics, social and cultural factors, innovations, and technological developments.<br />
But the most important factor is CHANGE. If it ain't changing it's hardly worth bothering about, and if it is, you need to know, and you need to act.<br />
Kind regards,<br />
Vernon Prior With all due respect Seena, I…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2010-01-08:2036441:Comment:290512010-01-08T20:47:18.080Zmonica nixonhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/monicanixon32
With all due respect Seena, I have to take serious issue with your point of view (POV) as a successful Senior Strategic Intelligence analyst and Director of CI in the high tech arena (Fortune 10/Global 150). From the tone of your response, I would tend to surmise your background is Market Research not CI, as this is a POV frequently espoused by MI/MR folks who do not understand CI and don't provide CI.<br />
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Anyway, allow me to provide you a pertinent example to illustrate why focusing on customers…
With all due respect Seena, I have to take serious issue with your point of view (POV) as a successful Senior Strategic Intelligence analyst and Director of CI in the high tech arena (Fortune 10/Global 150). From the tone of your response, I would tend to surmise your background is Market Research not CI, as this is a POV frequently espoused by MI/MR folks who do not understand CI and don't provide CI.<br />
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Anyway, allow me to provide you a pertinent example to illustrate why focusing on customers is not more important when it comes to driving innovation and accordingly business growth, new job creation.<br />
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Henry Ford said it best with regard to the car-"If I asked my customers what they want, they simply would have said a faster horse." The point here is thus- customers do not anticipate/drive major technological changes, they don't know what is technically possible, at best, they spur minor improvements.<br />
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Secondly, you forget the nature of competitive advantages which is where Ken Sawka's point comes into play-one of your competitors just might be able to better serve customers than your company can.Still going to ignore your competitors? Do so at your own risk. No one is going to put you out of business other than your competitors...<br />
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Thirdly, who do you think influences market and industry directions to the greatest degree? Smart competitors that's who, a lot more than customers ever will. I could provide numerous examples of this from the industries I have covered. What ends up happening is a competitor often ends up setting the tone for the market and customer expectations because they are good at x,y,z -and they do so to their advantage. Xerox is a very good example of this in the high end digital color POD market.<br />
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Fourth, with regard to substitutes....looking at the current market place does not do the trick in anticipating technological change. If I was just looking at the existing market if you will, and not at new IP incubation that might supplant my IP that is the labs of noncompeting firms, patent shifts in certain IPCs by a broad array of companies some of which might not be in the current market today, etc I would miss the boat. HUMINT gathering also helps here. When one is talking about IP substitution/supplementation no, looking at the current market in the vein that MR folks do fails every time. I've never seen MR folks provide SEWS on subs/supp but CI does frequently.<br />
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Fifth, no CI is not just about trying to find out things other companies don't know. It's about understanding your competitors so as to outmaneuver them and capitalize on their weaknesses or negate their competitive advantages as well as some of the other elements mentioned above.<br />
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Regards,<br />
Monica Nixon Shouldn't CI ideally be used…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2009-11-19:2036441:Comment:283782009-11-19T20:42:57.523ZBryan Doranhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/BryanDoran
Shouldn't CI ideally be used to help your company (or client company) understand how the competitor is going to react or drive customer behavior? Presumeably, both you and your competitors are doing market research with consumers to understand their needs, wants, desires, and responses to your new products. A company doesn't need a CI function to figure that out, they need CI folks to figure out what their competitors are doing with the same information. How are they going to offer your…
Shouldn't CI ideally be used to help your company (or client company) understand how the competitor is going to react or drive customer behavior? Presumeably, both you and your competitors are doing market research with consumers to understand their needs, wants, desires, and responses to your new products. A company doesn't need a CI function to figure that out, they need CI folks to figure out what their competitors are doing with the same information. How are they going to offer your customers something to get them to switch? How are they going to offer your suppliers, your distributors, etc... something to get them to promote and use more of their product?<br />
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CI should be a support function that helps your company prevail over the competition through understanding how your compeition will "differentiate" themselves and what you can do to stop them or "differentiate" yourself from them. I'm delighted to finally hear…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2009-11-16:2036441:Comment:283262009-11-16T02:01:00.762ZSeena Sharphttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/SeenaSharp
I'm delighted to finally hear the conversation moving away from competitors. The marketplace and customers are FAR more important than competitors in identifying opportunities, market changes, as well as customer's concerns, complaints and new ideas. Competitors should not be ignored, but keeping up to date with business and industry changes will be far more useful to the company than devoting a lot of time to monitoring competitors. This assumes the competitor knows something your company…
I'm delighted to finally hear the conversation moving away from competitors. The marketplace and customers are FAR more important than competitors in identifying opportunities, market changes, as well as customer's concerns, complaints and new ideas. Competitors should not be ignored, but keeping up to date with business and industry changes will be far more useful to the company than devoting a lot of time to monitoring competitors. This assumes the competitor knows something your company doesn't - and it's accurate.<br />
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Emerging competitors are more useful as they cannot gain sales or customers unless they offer something that the existing companies don't. And the reason if rarely price. Existing competitors need to be on the radar to determine if they are successful in doing something different that your company isn't doing or hasn't even considered. This might include adding a feature that customers want, targeting a different market, developing alternative uses, etc.<br />
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Far too many conversations focus on competitors rather than the entire competitive environment, as is evidenced by topics at SCIP's conference and articles in CI magazine.<br />
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I have had very strong opinions about the relative value of competitors for many, many years, and therefore devoted an entire chapter to this topic in my book, Competitive Intelligence Advantage (Wiley). Perhaps cheeky, I titled it "Why Fixating on Competitors is Misguided."<br />
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Competitors today include substitutes and companies from totally different industries. As above, the only way they get customers is because the established companies have a misguided focus on direct competitors rather than the marketplace. This is valuable for the company as it points out what they may have missed.<br />
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The more in touch companies are with their customers, the less likely another company (emerging or from another industry) will become a competitor (or serious competitor), as there is less opportunity. Note Amazon, eBay, Swiffer who maintain their dominance because they focus on staying current and continually satisfying customers. As far as I know all companie…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2009-11-14:2036441:Comment:283122009-11-14T12:06:20.438ZVivek Raghuvanshihttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/VivekRaghuvanshi
As far as I know all companies always use 5 Force Analysis.<br />
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Now it depends on how effective is the OODA loop
As far as I know all companies always use 5 Force Analysis.<br />
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Now it depends on how effective is the OODA loop Hi Jeremy,
Last week at SCIP…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2009-11-12:2036441:Comment:282492009-11-12T16:32:31.916ZPatrice FRANCOIShttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/PatriceFRANCOIS
Hi Jeremy,<br />
Last week at SCIP Amsterdam, the CI Manager of CISCO said that they were also not that much looking at the competition, but rather focusing on understanding customers. This seems to be the behaviour of market leaders who prefer creating markets and innovating, rather than following others.
Hi Jeremy,<br />
Last week at SCIP Amsterdam, the CI Manager of CISCO said that they were also not that much looking at the competition, but rather focusing on understanding customers. This seems to be the behaviour of market leaders who prefer creating markets and innovating, rather than following others. I have found that there are t…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2009-11-10:2036441:Comment:282272009-11-10T13:21:28.528ZKen Sawkahttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/KenSawka
I have found that there are two general attitudes behind all the reasons why a company would not look at its competitors -- arrogance and ignorance. Arrogance: we're the market leader, and as long as we keep serving our customers well, there's no reason to look at competitors. To which I reply - yes, until the competitor figures out a better way to serve customers. Ignorance - in many cases, companies WANT to assess their competitors, they just don't know how to do it effectively. This is where…
I have found that there are two general attitudes behind all the reasons why a company would not look at its competitors -- arrogance and ignorance. Arrogance: we're the market leader, and as long as we keep serving our customers well, there's no reason to look at competitors. To which I reply - yes, until the competitor figures out a better way to serve customers. Ignorance - in many cases, companies WANT to assess their competitors, they just don't know how to do it effectively. This is where CI becomes a label for what is really market research, library research, trends analysis, etc. The suggestions here so far to employ techniques like Five Forces are great for getting companies started at a more disciplined look at their competitors and competitive forces. But, in both situations (arrogance and ignorance) it will take a devastating competitive surprise to give firms like these religion on the importance of competitive intelligence. I'm going to play devils advo…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2009-11-10:2036441:Comment:282212009-11-10T13:07:44.527ZArthur Weisshttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/ArthurWeiss
I'm going to play devils advocate here.<br />
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It's possible that this company has its feet firmly on the ground - and is actually thinking more than many of us do.<br />
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As CI professionals we focus on competitors - perhaps to too great an extent if we ignore market trends. Companies may lose market share to competitors but it's very rare that they will lose out totally to a competitor.<br />
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If you focus on market trends, you watch what customers are purchasing and what their current needs are and how these…
I'm going to play devils advocate here.<br />
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It's possible that this company has its feet firmly on the ground - and is actually thinking more than many of us do.<br />
<br />
As CI professionals we focus on competitors - perhaps to too great an extent if we ignore market trends. Companies may lose market share to competitors but it's very rare that they will lose out totally to a competitor.<br />
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If you focus on market trends, you watch what customers are purchasing and what their current needs are and how these are changing. This makes perfect sense, as it's NOT competitors that make you money but your customers. Failing to match their needs both now and in the future will mean that your customers will switch to a competitor. Keeping your customers 100% happy will mean that they are unlikely to want to switch to a competitor. Furthermore, customers may know about emerging trends that both you and your competitors haven't yet spotted - perhaps from another sector. (Consider Polaroid and digital cameras. Yes - i know it's cliched as a case and also more complex, but essentially Polaroid missed the digital camera revolution as their business model at the time wasn't capable of handling the changes digital photography brought to the market. They new their traditional competitors in film - but not the emerging ones).<br />
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So looking at market trends means that you are identifying what makes customers happy - now - so essentially what STOPS the competitor gaining your customers. It also looks at trends that could threaten you in the future - and your traditional competitors too.<br />
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In contrast, focusing too much on competitors can mean ignoring customer needs, wants and desires. When that happens it doesn't matter how much you know about your competitor - as you've just lost the customer who paid for all that (now useless) competitor research. Thank you all for the very in…tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2009-11-04:2036441:Comment:281082009-11-04T00:58:24.310ZJeremy Benjacob-Fullerhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/JeremyBenjacobFuller
Thank you all for the very interesting replies. I tend to think any company not doing CI is playing to lose, but some of the feedback offered suggests scenarios whereby doing CI might be pretty low on the list of priorities - especially if budgets are tight.<br />
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William Edmiston - I'm in the Bay Area too (SF) and would love to take you up on a more direct conversation. That said, any insights you have to offer, might also be appreciated by the thread responders if you have the time to type out…
Thank you all for the very interesting replies. I tend to think any company not doing CI is playing to lose, but some of the feedback offered suggests scenarios whereby doing CI might be pretty low on the list of priorities - especially if budgets are tight.<br />
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William Edmiston - I'm in the Bay Area too (SF) and would love to take you up on a more direct conversation. That said, any insights you have to offer, might also be appreciated by the thread responders if you have the time to type out your thoughts.<br />
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Thanks again everyone for sharing your thoughts. Much appreciated.