What Are the Best Tips for Gathering Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive intelligence is referred to as CI, or Competitive Intelligence.

Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence is closely related to the competitiveness of an enterprise. In fact, the competition of an enterprise is actually a competition of the strength of the enterprise as a result of the concentration of various aspects of the enterprise. The competition environment facing enterprises is complex and changeable, and the distribution of competitors is also very wide. The formulation and adjustment of competition strategies are facing huge uncertainties, and opportunities and challenges coexist. How to gain a foothold in the fierce and fierce market competition and reduce the gap with competitors has become the focus of attention of corporate managers, especially decision makers. ^[1]

Competitive intelligence is an inevitable extension and development of traditional intelligence. It has the general characteristics of traditional intelligence, including knowledge, immateriality, sociality, transferability, and accumulation. However, it is different from traditional intelligence and has commercial characteristics. Adversarial, decision-making, timeliness, concealment and other characteristics. ^[2]

Competitive Intelligence (CI) is not a new thing. As early as 2000 years ago, grandsons in ancient China reasonably explained the basic principles of intelligence with simple language. Win one defeat; I do nt know the other, I do nt know myself, and every battle will be frustrated , So Ming Junxian will be the winner, and the winner is the one who succeeds, the prophet.

Modern competitive intelligence appeared in the 1950s and began in the 1980s.It was marked by the establishment of the SCIP American Association of Competitive Intelligence Practitioners in 1986.In the past 30 years, it has been widely popularized among leading companies and industries in developed economies. Successful application. In 2008, SCIP was renamed the Association of Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Practitioners, which clearly highlighted that competitive intelligence provides decision support and early warning to senior managers through in-depth tracking, analysis and research of public information.

Since 2002, professional competitive intelligence promotion and popularization agencies have emerged in China: Beijing Zhongxing Xinjing Information Technology Research Institute,

Public information

Be good at finding clues from public information and finding "weak signals that give you a sense of direction." "95% of the information comes from public information, 4% comes from semi-public information, and only 1% or less comes from confidential information." In theory, it is still very limited to obtain information from public information sources in China. Since CI is based on the analysis of public information, the intelligence gathering work must be sensitive, and it must have the ability to find some useful information in public information.

Organization chart

The information in the enterprise directory, such as enterprise size, products, output, sales volume, sales and other information, not only helps to initially determine competitors, understand their products and other general conditions, but also can use the statistical yearbook and other materials to process new information. Such as product market share, market coverage, market sales growth rate, market expansion rate, competitive product distribution, competitive structure, comparison of similar enterprises' strength, etc.

product sample

The product sample is a specific introduction to the model, technical specifications, principle performance, and technical parameters of the stereotyped product, and is also accompanied by a structure diagram and a photo. Structural characteristics, operating procedures, use, maintenance and repair methods, etc. Product manuals and individual product samples are highly intuitive and have many data. They are important information sources for planning, development, sales, and foreign trade professionals to understand products and grasp market conditions.

The product sample literature is characterized by three aspects:

First, reliability is strong

Second, the product samples and technical information are more complete

Third, timeliness and relative novelty

Through the compilation of product samples, you can also know the situation of the product manufacturer, the advantages and disadvantages of the product compared with similar products, and infer the technical strength, product development capability and level, and sales status of the company.

Newspapers and clippings

In particular, industry newspapers, economic information newspapers and local newspapers are important windows to understand the competitive situation of the industry

Published stock trading profiles of listed companies, annual reports of listed companies, industrial enterprises

The monitoring and analysis of the competitive environment of enterprises is the basis for conducting research on competitive intelligence of enterprises.

The company's competitors and their various behaviors are the focus of the company's close attention, and it is the core of the company's competition environment monitoring.

In economic activities, a competition strategy is a choice decision about where an enterprise is going. The core issue is to determine its own competition goals and guidelines to guide the enterprise to win in the competition. Competitive tactics are decisions on how to implement corporate strategy. The core problem is to formulate a series of measures and plans that can capture market opportunities and give play to their competitive advantages, and ultimately win the competitive market.

The main contents of competitive strategic intelligence research:

1. Under the circumstances of the specific environment and analysis of competitors, can the company enter or change the original region, industry and department? What are the criteria for entry?

2. Based on the company's existing resource strength, how does the company position itself in the strategic change process?

3. in

   The changes in the competitive environment of enterprises, the emergence of new technologies, the needs of the company's own development, and the deepening of research on competition theory and game theory are all ways to competitive intelligence and

   The personnel engaged in the business competitive intelligence business shall have comprehensive qualities:

   1. Must have corporate work experience;

   2. Have the following main knowledge and capabilities:

   1. Have considerable knowledge of economic management-especially

      In 1992, the Shanghai Institute of Science and Technology Information published two articles, "Professor Nakagawa Shiro's Competitive Intelligence Report: Basic Concepts and Contents of Competitive Intelligence," and "Introduction to the American Association of Competitive Intelligence Professionals." Development of competitive intelligence. With the establishment of the SCIP Global Expansion Working Group in 1994, China began to set up the "Institute for Intelligence Research and Competitive Intelligence of the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology Information Society", which was renamed "In May 1995"

      Due to the fierce competition in the international market and the increasingly rapid development of social informatization, the demand for competitive intelligence by countries, regions and enterprises has greatly increased. In the future, the development of competitive intelligence research and its industry will show the following trends:

      1. With the development of global economic integration and regionalization of the global economy, regional competition internationalization, localization of international competition, and a diversified competitive landscape have emerged. The service target of competitive intelligence has also expanded from supporting business activities to intellectual property protection, Mergers and reorganizations and other strategic operational areas have gradually expanded from enterprises to regions, industries, countries, and international regional economic unions.

      2. As the ideas and research methods of competitive intelligence are gradually recognized by people, the application of competitive intelligence is receiving more and more attention from all sides, and it has shown a tendency to penetrate into many disciplines such as economics, management, and information technology, and has become the theoretical system of corresponding disciplines. An important part of it. This trend has strongly promoted the continuous development of the competitive intelligence industry to new breadth and depth.

      3. Due to the application of new information technologies such as network technology, information filtering, information mining and fusion technology in competitive intelligence activities, a large number of competitive intelligence software with the goal of CI operation automation and intelligence have emerged. According to incomplete statistics, as of the end of 2003, worldwide Software developers have developed nearly 300 types of CI software. On the domestic front, CI software products such as CCID, Baidu, Yidi Square, and 365Agent have also gradually surfaced.

      The implementation of competitive intelligence

      Competitive intelligence is not only the collection and analysis of intelligence information, but also the output and provision of intelligence products, that is, competition strategies or research reports, systems, and systems. Therefore, it is actually a step-by-step, interconnected implementation process. The development or completion of a competitive intelligence work can generally be divided into the following eight main stages.

      1. Investigate the enterprise: Including the establishment of a competitiveness index system and investigation of relevant data, determination of key leading products that determine competitiveness, and selection of major competitors.

      2. Investigation of competitors: including the use of various legal methods to retrieve, collect various materials or publications, databases, participate in exhibitions (sales), press conferences, exchanges, etc., to timely understand and fully grasp the dynamic information of competitors.

      3. Investigate the competitive environment: including domestic and foreign markets, technological development levels, national, regional, and industrial policies and related laws and regulations, and understand the opportunities and threats to corporate development.

      4. Quantitative comparison analysis: Includes qualitative and quantitative comparisons of various indicators of the company and its competitors, including statistics, induction, screening, processing, calculation, ranking and advantages, disadvantages, opportunities, and comprehensive analysis of threats.

      5. Formulate competition strategy: Include the development strategy, product and price positioning, marketing strategy, management improvement plan, structural adjustment proposal, etc. of the company based on comparative analysis, and complete corresponding research reports and attachments.

      6. Establishing an organizational system: Including the establishment of a corresponding competitive intelligence system within the enterprise, which guarantees that the enterprise can independently carry out continuous competitive intelligence work in the future and become an important part of the strategic management system of the enterprise. It can be built in the planning, research and development, and marketing departments, with the participation of information department personnel. And it is best to be led by the company's main leaders.

      7. Establishing a computer system: Including the establishment of a competitive intelligence computer network system on the basis of an enterprise information management system (MIS) or independent information collection, transmission, processing and provision of information, informationization and modernization of competitive intelligence, real tracking and early warning.

      8. Carrying out inspection and improvement: including establishing intelligence files, soliciting user feedback, organizing expert acceptance, suggesting improvements, formulating and implementing improvement measures, etc. to ensure the quality of results and play a better role.