Competitive Intelligence on a Shoestring - Inc.com September 12, 2006
Posted by admin in : In The News , trackbackEven though the article Competitive Intelligence on a Shoestring is a bit older, it hasn’t lost any of it’s value. Jan Gardner describes the advantages of online research and the necessity of thorough analysis of the competitors.
It is emphasized that gathering information is important, however these information have to be analyzed and put into action.
Mainly three information sources are highlighted:
- Free online search using search engines and other valuable databases
- People who are somehow related to your company (employees, customers, vendors etc.)
- Enhancing relationships with key experts like journalists, associations or security analysts.
Remember, Nolan says, bigger isn’t necessarily better when it comes to doing competitive research. Big companies might have entire departments dedicated to the endeavor, but smaller companies have the speed, drive, and dedication to get it done.
Comments»
The article on Inc.com by Jan Gardner is an excellent resource and extremely useful to mid and large size enterprise that have the resources to draw on multiple employees, subject matter experts and cultivate relationships with key experts (Security analysts, Associations and Journalists). If you are an entrepreneur or embryonic start-up the amount of time, capital and people you can commit to CI ais very limited. This would be the case for companies in the pre-seed and seed stage of the corporate lifecycle.
I authored an article on Entrepreneur.com also titled “Competitive Intelligence on a shoestring” that is geared more toward the embryonic start-up whose needs and means are very different than those of a more established company. Therefore the whole CI process is usually done in a matter of days or a couple of weeks at most. In the start-up environment competitive intelligence is quite literally on a shoestring out of necessity.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/marketresearch/article79512.html