Posts Tagged ‘Competitive’

 

It’s important for new businesses to complete a competitive analysis during the business planning stage, but competitive intelligence can also be useful for marketing, pricing, managing and other strategic planning for retailers.

Before you can know your competitive edge, you must first know your competitor.

Competitive Analysis Questions:
Where is your competitor located?
What are the competitor’s strengths?
What are their weaknesses?
What are your competitor’s annual sales?
What is the company’s product line?
How do the products compare to yours, in terms of quality, appearance and any other criteria?
What is their price structure?
What are the company’s marketing activities?
What are the company’s supply sources for products?
Is the company expanding or cutting back?
What do they do better than you?
To answer these questions, retailers will need to do some detective work and gather competitive intelligence. Competition research and assessment doesn’t need to be complicated.
There’s no need to hire someone to do what you can do yourself, but consider employing research firms to find information that isn’t available publicly. Here are a few tools for acquiring competitive intelligence.

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Online Searches are a quick method of finding competitive information. However, this search will only provide information that has become public.
On-site observations of the competitor’s parking lot, customer service, volume and pattern of suppliers’ deliveries, etc. can yield useful information about the state of the competitor’s business.
Surveys and interviews can yield plenty of data about competitors and products. Research surveys and focus group interviews generally provide more in-depth perspectives from a limited sample.
Competitive Benchmarking is used for comparing the organization’s operations against those of the competitor’s. In making specific comparisons within an industry, an organization gains information about common marketing practices, available work force, and suppliers.
Put it to Work
The results of your competitive analysis establish the skills necessary to succeed in your retail business and define your distinct competitive advantage.
To benefit from your research, take as many weaknesses of your competitors as possible and turn them into potential strengths for your business. Narrow down your list to only those items that will give you the competitive edge. Be sure your list is:
Cost-effective and realistic
Planned to solve a particular problem or meet a specific need
Attractive to a niche market
If you begin a business without performing a competitive analysis, you run the risk of creating marketing tools and product or service offerings that they are way off the mark.
If you begin a business without performing a competitive analysis, you run the risk of creating marketing tools and product or service offerings that are way off the mark. This can cost you valuable time and money during the critical early months.
You should also plan to gather competitive intelligence as your business grows, in order to stay competitive. Competitive analysis is an ongoing process and retailers should always be gathering information about their competitors.

The astronomical growth of group buying websites such as Groupon and Livingsocial has been a major trend for 2010 — but what does the group buying market look like beyond the hype? This webinar will explore competitive intelligence and benchmarking as a way to understand what your competitors are doing online. The webinar will use Compete’s Online Channel Effectiveness (OCE) product to show how marketers can gain insights and competitive benchmarks to improve their performance across the entire online sales funnel. You will learn: • Why online marketers are flying blind without competitive intelligence. • The four key areas of the sales funnel you need to measure vs. your competitors. • Key metrics in each area of the sales funnel. • How leading marketers use competitive intelligence to driving marketing effectiveness.
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It’s no secret that I love using blogs to gather competitive intelligence. In any single Internet marketing campaign at any time, I don’t spend a single penny until I have found at least 10 or 15 blogs that relate to whatever it is I’m selling. I read through each and every one of those blogs for at least three or four days usually longer; more like a week. If I have a lot of time before the marketing campaign begins I’ll spend as much as two to three weeks reading blogs within the industry.

You can find out so much about your industry, your niche, your market, your product, and your potential customers, just by reading a few blogs that relate to whatever it is you’re selling. The hardest part is finding those specific blogs that relate to your specific industry. And that’s what I’m going to talk about today in this article.

So the question remains, how can you find specific blogs that relate to your specific industry or product?

Well there are two or three places that I like to go to search for blogs on any given industry. The first is Technorati, which is a sort of search engine for blogs. Go to their website and you can see that it’s very easy to search for blogs. Just type at the top of the page and away you go. Now if I were you I would type in my specific keyword that I’m targeting first of all, or you can type in the industry name you are in, or a generic product name that relates to your product… the point is just get in there and poke around and figured out how things work. I have no idea how many blogs Technorati has indexed but it is many many millions. In July 2006 Technorati announced that they were tracking over 50 million blogs.

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Now that’s been 3 1/2 years so you can imagine how many more are in there. Especially in the last couple of years blogging has really exploded, so if it’s out there you can expect to find it at Technorati.

The next two places that I use are probably more obvious. The first one is Google. You can use Google to find everything and anything and I’m sure you already know how to do that, so I won’t spend any more time talking about it.

But there may be a feature of Google that you don’t know about and it’s the third place that I used to find blogs. It’s called Google blog search, which I think is very aptly named. Don’t you just love how Google names things? They don’t mess around fancy names do they? Google blog search, Google talk, Google voice, Google Mail, Google analytics, they generally don’t spend any money on marketing brand names. But I’m getting off the point…

You can find Google blog search by just going to Google and typing in Google blog search. It will be the first thing that comes up I promise you. Get in there and play around with it; search for a few things and you’ll find it is a very useful tool to have when looking for blogs as a competitive research tool.

And that’s it! Those are the three places that I use most of the time to search for blogs on any given industry from a competitive research point of view. I hope you found this helpful, and thanks for reading.

The Cardiovascular Market Outlook to 2015 provides comprehensive coverage of the cardiovascular market, incorporating a disease overview and detailed epidemiological analyses of the major indications. This report makes a wide-ranging assessment of the marketed product portfolio, R&D pipeline, market share data, sales forecast and competitive landscape for the major players. Furthermore, it highlights the key market and R&D trends that may influence treatment sales; with a thorough analysis of the competitive dynamics of leading brands within each indication, in order to enable the reader to identify growing brands, key drug classes and leading players through 2015.

The cardiovascular market may be segmented into numerous subcategories, including antihypertensives, antidyslipidemics, antithrombotics, cardiac therapies and other cardiovascular agents. While established treatments are currently available for each of these therapeutic subcategories, these markets are large and significant unmet medical needs still exists. Among the various cardiovascular indications, dyslipidemia had the highest prevalence in 2009, with approximately 333m people affected by the condition.
The global cardiovascular market is quite dynamic and has remained a leading therapy area in the global pharmaceutical market. The seven major markets (7MM) captured a significant market share of the global cardiovascular market and also recorded a moderate Y-o-Y growth in 2009. The US continued to be a dominant market and registered a Y-o-Y increase in 2009, mainly attributed to the performance of key categories such as statins and beta blockers.

In terms of pipeline developments, the thrombosis market has witnessed a lot of activity, with promising new drugs such as Sanofi-Aventis’ Multaq (launched in the US in 2009), J&J/Bayer’s Xarelto (launched in 2008), Pfizer/BMS’s apixaban (under registration), Eli Lilly/Daiichi Sankyo’s Effient (approved in 2009) and Boehringer Ingelheim’s Pradaxa (launched in 2008). These oral drugs are expected to widen the thrombosis market significantly, while also extending the prescription period. Additionally, these new generation drugs are set to undermine Lovenox’s (Sanofi-Aventis) monopoly in the thrombosis market.

Key features of this report

• Epidemiological analysis and forecast prevalence of the major cardiovascular indications such as hypertension, dyslipidemia and stroke over the period 2009–15.

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• Forecasts and analysis of the major products in the cardiovascular market over the period 2009-15 spread across the major indications and classes of treatments.
• Overview of key events in the global cardiovascular market that have impacted treatment trends and sales potential across the major cardiovascular indications.
• Strategic and growth analysis of leading pharmaceutical corporations based on sales focus by drug class, currently marketed products and R&D product portfolios.
• Detailed analysis across major classes of cardiovascular treatments including antihypertensives, antidyslipidemics, antithrombotics, cardiac therapies and other cardiovascular agents.

Scope of this report

• Quantify patient potential, assess treatment trends and sales patterns across the major cardiovascular disorder indications in the US, Japan and top 5 EU markets.
• Discover which indications have the greatest potential to provide franchise growth and understand the growth drivers of the major classes such as antihypertensives, antidyslipidemics, antithrombotics, cardiac therapies and other cardiovascular agents.
• Compare the franchises of top pharmaceutical marketers across major indications, and evaluate how market share of leading companies, such as Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis, Merck, AstraZeneca and BMS will change over the next 5 years.
• Quick and comprehensive understanding of how recent events are affecting the performance of major products, and how leading players are confronting competitive challenges in the cardiovascular marketplace.
• Gain up-to-date competitive intelligence across the cardiovascular portfolio and understand the major issues affecting key pharmaceutical marketers and product development.

Key Market Issues

• Angiotensin receptor blockers may cause increased cancer risk: In June 2010, the Lancet Oncololgy journal published a meta-analysis study which indicated that ARBs (angtiotensin receptor blockers) have an increased cancer risk. The study involved 61,590 patients from five clinical trials and the results demonstrated that ARBs increased the relative risk of new cancer occurrence by 7.2% versus 6% in control groups
• Crestor’s patent upheld in the US: AstraZeneca’s blockbuster antidyslipidemic Crestor, the biggest growth driver within cholesterol lowering drugs received a boost after its patent was upheld by a US district court in June 2010, following a four month trial which began in February same year. Crestor is currently the only branded statin in the US market which is witnessing positive growth and this judgement is expected to improve its prospects through the forecast period.
• Plavix boxed warning for poor metabolizers: Sanofi-Aventis’/BMS’ Plavix, received a boxed warning to its US label in March 2010, indicating a warning about the diminished effectiveness of the drug in patients with a variant of the CYP2C1P liver enzyme leading to reduced formation of the active metabolite. Sanofi-Aventis conducted a study in 40 subjects, with 10 each in the four metabolizer types and found that the poor metabolizers had notably lower levels of Plavix and anti-platelets. This patient pool termed as poor metabolizers includes approximately 14% of Chinese, 4% of blacks and 2% of caucasians.
• Apixaban’s Phase III AVERROES trial halted: In June 2010, BMS halted its Phase III AVERROES trial in vitamin K antagonist intolerant patients with atrial fibrillation. Interim data from the trial revealed that the drug reduced stroke and systemic embolism in comparison with aspirin, in addition to demonstrating sufficient safety prompting the company to take this decision. Apixaban has already been filed in the EU for prevention of VTE in adults who are undergoing elective hip or knee replacement therapies.

To know more about this report & to buy a copy please visit :
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                                       The Strategic Planning Process                             

                      Market Research – Political, Economic, Regulatory, Competitive

                         ……….and the greatest of these is Competitive Research

A well integrated Strategic Planning Process has always been the cornerstone of strong Company earnings and positive market share growth among industry leaders. Within the Strategic Planning Process there is a wealth of information available on the potential impact of Political, Economic and Regulatory changes for the segments in which your company operates. Corporate Planning for the next few business cycles will pay particular attention to the potential impact of the very turbulent financial markets worldwide.  

In 2009, this could include the potentially positive impact of the ‘bailout’ action plans of the Barack Obama and Stephen Harper administrations, the ‘New Reality’ economic operating environment and its potential business consequences, regulatory changes, and social trends for the environments in which your Company operates.

The competitive marketplace, however – that is an entirely different matter.

The ‘Competitive Intelligence’ updates would pay close attention each key competitor as well as new entrants and those exiting the business. The research data on customer and supplier profile changes that may impact the business going forward is a ‘mission critical’ element. There is no question that both the advancements in technology and the seemingly ‘out of the blue’ arrival of non traditional competitors may in fact, along with a floundering economy, be the most essential aspects of Strategic Planning in this business cycle.

All too often the road of an internalized Strategic Planning Process with only a cursory look at the traditional competition as well as the potential impact of new trends or technologies has led to market share self destruction. The emphasis is on market research and qualitative data.

As a good illustration, the Audio/Video, in-home entertainment, mobile devices and communications industries represent an excellent case in point. These are all industries with very clear market leaders that are now struggling to compete with new products and /or systems that are connecting with a new consumer who is on the grid; who is product savvy; who is environmentally concerned and who wants immediate access to the latest of everything that is just a ‘point-and-click’ away. Consumers just want to ‘plug and play’. They don’t want to order or wait for CD’s, DVD’s, videos or have to buy a new device to get new features.

These same consumers make choices and form opinions from Social Utility Networking Applications like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn (primarily a business relationship networking site) and beware, these may also be also the same consumers that have no problem posting positive and negative videos about your company on YouTube.  They will share positive or negative press or reviews about your product on Digg, a social news website. They willingly provide their own interpretation of your marketing or logos on MySpace and at the end of the day, have the power, through Twitter micro blogging, to spread news faster than the New York Times, who is also on Twitter themselves.

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Are the right wing leaning, very conservative Drudge Report or the left leaning liberal Huffington Post relevant internet news hubs?  Well, the Drudge Report, founded in 1997, drew international recognition in 1998 as first news network to break the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. After Matt Drudge’s report, Newsweek published the story. The DrudgeReport.com consists mainly of a selection of hyperlinks to news websites all over the world. A few years ago, the two man team of Drudge and Andrew Breitbart moved the website from their LA apartment to Drudge’s home in Miami, Florida. This virtual news network will see Gross Revenue for 2009 projected at million. Nielsen NetRatings reports a combined 5.3 million Drudge/Breitbart website visitors per month with visitors spending an average of 66 minutes per visit. USAToday.com has 10.7 million visitors monthly. Is this relevant ? You decide. As that marketing icon Bob Dylan would say, ‘the times they are a changing.’

 This could all seem like bad news, or possibly shock therapy to a Marketing Department but on the other hand it could serve your company well as a competitive advantage. As a key component at the front end of the Strategic Planning Process to either gather market research or to use it as an additional tool to disseminate information to key market segments.

A word of caution should be added to all of this as well. ‘Those who talk don’t know and those who don’t know, talk.’  Validate your sources to be sure the research is qualitative research.

Embracing new technologies like blogging, wiki’s, news networks, social networks and micro blogging can possibly build brand loyalty faster than many traditional methods of reaching consumers in these particular market segments. It cannot be ignored. More e-communication in various forms now takes place between individuals via these networks than through e-mail.

The new consumer is evident everywhere. It is no accident that bricks and mortar video rental stores like Blockbuster and Rogers are giving way to other alternatives. Interestingly enough, over 53% of their rental revenue came from late return charges. Some initial indications of change took place in larger cities like New York, LA and San Francisco. With Real Estate costs at a premium it created the perfect opportunity for NetFlix. Consumers could order their movies; the movie would arrive at their doorstep and then, once viewed, is returned via the mail. A process however, that was still a bit clumsy.

Now, the ‘new and improved’ NetFlix of Cisco Systems Inc. HD broadband Video-on-demand subscribers have video direct streaming access to over 12,000  HD or Blu-Ray titles as well as PVR services like TiVo. Viewers can order online, view online, and even store it online and watch it any time they want. Both NetFlix and On-Demand represent corporate strategies to improve the consumer experience.

With those questions then, what are the answers? The answer to all these questions again is simple: timely qualitative research. It could also be called the 4R’s of Marketing. The right product, at the right time at the right price to the right consumer; AKA the building block derivatives of an in depth strategic planning process.

The Strategic Planning Process is the first step within the discipline of Business Process Management. The follow-up steps are then Business Case Methodology to ensure that each and every meaningful Company initiative is accompanied by a detailed Business Case for Senior Management and/or Board approval. 

The next stage in Business Process Management is either the Product Development Process or the Project Management Process that represents a disciplined, staged workflow process to ensure on time/on budget results. Built into each of the ‘processes’ are ‘go and no go’ check points for timely reporting back to Senior Management/Board.

The final stage of the completion of the project would be its transfer into Operations. The final stage of the completion and launch of the product would be the transfer of product responsibilities into the Product Management Process.

The fact that the marketplace is in transition across each end every industry segment isn’t new. Change and survival are commonplace and at least in concept are not a great deal different than ‘The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection’ by Charles Darwin. Those companies that are best prepared for the ‘New Reality’ will thrive and those that are not well prepared will despair. There is nothing particularly unique about the key components Business Process Management. Similarly, the fact that the ‘excellence companies’ have engrained both the discipline and the fundamentals of Business Process Management into the evolution of their businesses is also not unique.

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Russia’s well educated and low cost workforce is one of the main attraction for investors all over the world. According to recent statistics, Russia’s population (which is currently about 141m) is steadily declining at a rate of around 0.4%. Thus, the government is trying to remedy this through several immigration policies and federal programs such as stimulating birth rates and reducing mortality.
Russia has been one of the fastest growing emerging pharmaceutical markets in the world in recent years. The Russian healthcare industry is also experiencing robust growth which is primarily driven by several initiatives by the government such as improvement in primary care, efficient implementation of health insurance and an increase in healthcare financing.
Russia is an ideal branded generic market, as consumers are willing to pay higher prices for brands associated with quality. This is due to the fact that several domestic manufacturers operate plants that are not GMP (good manufacturing practice) compliant. As a result, foreign pharmaceutical companies have been effective at driving growth by promoting their brands over local products.
Russians are known to under spend on pharmaceutical products both in nominal and relative terms. In terms of public and out-of-pocket spending on pharmaceuticals, the Russian pharmaceutical market still lags behind the other emerging and developed countries. Out-of-pocket expenditure on pharmaceuticals accounts for the overwhelming majority of sales in Russia (which is much higher as compared to other OECD countries).
The Russian Pharmaceutical Market Outlook to 2014 provides comprehensive coverage of the Russian pharmaceutical market, market structure, pricing and regulation, and includes detailed epidemiological analyses of the common indications/risk factors. This report makes a wide-ranging assessment of the marketed product portfolio, R&D pipeline, market share, sales forecast and competitive landscape for the major players in Russia. Furthermore, the report highlights the key market and R&D trends that may influence treatment sales, with a thorough analysis of the competitive dynamics of leading brands and indications in Russia. This will enable the reader to identify growth trends, key drug classes and leading players through to 2014.

Key features of this report

• Macroeconomic environment in Russia includes the demographic trends, economic landscape, disease burden and healthcare spending
• Russian healthcare system involving the pharmaceutical spending, intellectual property regime, pricing and reimbursement, healthcare reforms, and recent development in the healthcare sector
• Overview of the Russian pharmaceutical market covering comparative dynamics of emerging pharmaceutical market, key recent events, Russian OTC pharmaceutical market, therapeutic area analysis, leading product dynamics, generic drug market and the overall market forecast through 2014

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• Forecasts and analysis of the leading products in the Russian pharmaceutical market over the period 2008–14 spread across major indications and classes of treatments

Scope of this report

– Develop insights for the Russian pharmaceutical market, pricing & regulation, healthcare system and detailed epidemiological status of the common indications/risk factors in the country
– Quickly understand how recent events are affecting the performance of major products, and how their marketers are confronting competitive challenges in the Russian market
– Gain up-to-date competitive intelligence across a wide-range of marketed products, R&D pipeline, market share data, sales forecast and competitive landscape for the major players in the Russian pharmaceutical market
– Understand which indications have the greatest potential to provide franchise growth, and how pharmaceutical companies are attempting to exploit these opportunities in Russia

Key Market Issues

– Stringent drug pricing regulation in Russia might create an opportunity for local manufacturers: In August 2009, the Russian Ministry of health presented a draft guideline on optimizing the price regulation of essential and life-saving medicines in the country. According to the draft, companies have to register the prices of essential and vital medicines in Roubles (Russian currency) from January 01, 2011 and introduce a maximum trade mark-ups for both locally manufactured and imported drugs in Russia.
– Influvir and Pandeflu among two swine flu vaccines to receive Russian approval: In October 2009, Roszdravnadzor, Russia’s federal service on surveillance in healthcare and social development approved two domestic H1N1 flu vaccines Influvir and Pandeflu under a fast-track procedure. The approval was solely based on the safety and tolerability of the vaccine with no major side-effects. Influvir is a live monovalent vaccine for intranasal administration, while Pandeflu is an inactivated adsorbed monovalent sub-unit vaccine for injection.
– Neuronascent’s collaboration agreement with ChemRar will find new molecules in neurodegenerative diseases: In November 2009, Neuronascent (a US biotech company) and ChemRar (a Russian biotech start-up) signed a discovery agreement under which Neuronascent will screen ChemRar’s certain pathway inhibitors using its technology for identifying neurogenic and neuroprotective drug candidates. Both the companies also decided to evaluate co-development opportunities for funding and future commercialization of their products.

Key findings from this report

– The Russian pharmaceutical market was valued at around bn in sales in 2008. Despite several changes in the DLO system (state restricted reimbursement program) which was introduced to promote increased utilization of domestically manufactured drugs, imported drugs accounted for substantial portion of sales in the Russian market.
– Economic growth and stability have increased the attractiveness of the Russian pharmaceutical market to foreign companies. More recently, Russia also became a favored destination for outsourcing of clinical trials.
– Drug suppliers in the Russian pharmaceutical market are mainly manufacturers of APIs. However many large pharmaceutical players also have a chemical manufacturing unit in this country. For example Merck & Co. has its own chemical division in Russia.
– Drugs representing cardiovascular and alimentary canal & metabolic disorders held dominant position in Russian pharmaceutical market (with as many as six products in the top 10). However, the top 10 brands contributed only 7.3% in terms of market share in 2008, with ‘others’ accounting for a substantial share of 92.7%.
– Nycomed’s Actovegin (a cerebral and peripheral vasotherapeutic agent) and Pharmstandard’s Arbidol (one of the leading OTC drug for influenza) led the Russian pharmaceutical market in 2008.

Key questions answered

– What will be the major growth indications and the accompanying growth drivers in the Russian pharmaceutical industry over the next 5 years?
– Which were the leading players in the Russian pharmaceutical market (both multinational and domestic) in 2008?
– How have recent launches from companies such as Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, Servier, Bayer, Pharmstandard and Gedeon Richter performed in the market place?
– Which products will be the future growth drivers for the Russian pharmaceutical market?
– Which therapeutic categories are forecast to have the highest levels of commercial potential over the period 2008–14?

To know more about this report & to buy a copy please visit :
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Defining and accomplishing performance that will make your company the best to your customers and markets requires a six step road map. These steps are deployed in sequence because the output of each step becomes the input for the next. For example, articulating corporate culture such as defining your competitive market performance before creating your customer value proposition will likely result in ineffective allocation of department resources. The first two steps provide critical information and analysis about external market characteristics, customer requirements as well as competitor performance.

 Each of these first two step requires structure elements that must be carefully defined and thoroughly deployed before articulating your corporate culture. This means you must study and understand your markets, customer values and competitive performance before allocating people, performance, policies and product performance. Corporate culture, step three, consists of structuring all resources to meet customer and market expectations. selecting and effectively using resources required being competitive with markets and customers before scheduling and planning company resources.  Competitive growth requires constant analysis and adjustment of internal processes, resources and skills. When your corporate message of competitive performance, operating policies, company values and market expectations are articulated, you are ready to deploy steps four, five and six. These internal steps must have strong directions and guidance from your corporate culture efforts. Imagine defining a process improvement project without corporate values or directions.

 Step One: Analyze Markets, Competitor and Competitive Productivity

The first step of competitive growth requires careful study and quantification of markets, customers and competitors. You must know the demand metrics of your market definition. They determine the potential and requirements for your sales strategy, cost structure, operational performance levels and your competitive productivity objectives. These metrics change over time, as markets, competitors and customers change. Semi-annual review and adjustments are necessary. Company operations must accommodate these change. There are four action elements in this component that your must master. You should analyze the performance of these elements at least semi-annually, they are: 

Establish your market definition and boundaries
Analyze and know your demand metrics such as market share, size and growth
Create and manage a competitive intelligence system
Measure and calculate your competitive productivity against your competitors

 Step Two: Deploy Your Customer Value Proposition

The second step consists of defining and measuring your customer value proposition. The success of your company is primarily based on how well you meet the expectations of your markets and provides the highest values to your customers and markets. The company with the best value will likely attract the most customers and grow the fastest. The trick to this simple equation is to understand customer values and assure your performance for these values are the best among all customers and competitors. There are four action elements in this component that your must understand and achieve. You should analyze the performance of these elements at least semi-annually, they are:

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Define and publish customer values
Rate customer value performance for you and your competitors
Identify customer value strengths and weaknesses for you and your competitors
Implement process improvements for your weaknesses

 

Step Three: Articulate Your Corporate Culture

The third component of competitive growth is articulating your corporate culture. Your corporate culture provides a unifying communication of what needs to be accomplished by all employees. This step has seven action elements and communicates corporate values, performance standards and required operating results by all employees. Corporate culture provides a common direction and vision to be accomplishment all employees must follow. Without a strong deployment, sustaining competitive performance can not be maintained. There are seven action elements to master within this component. There are four topic elements in this component, they are:

 

Define and communicate competitive market performance metrics
Communicate corporate goals and values to all employees
Budget and acquire resources and staff to accomplish goals
Publish department goals and objectives; require compliance
Achieve required process capabilities to accomplish objectives
Document business policies
Define and enhance your core competencies 

 

Step Four: Implement Process Improvements

  Step four is implementing process improvements to eliminate waste, improve productivity and exceed customer expectations. You must also improve your weak performance to your customer value drivers identify in step two. Process improvement requires using the fewest resources to provide the highest value to markets and customers. These objectives requires careful analysis of business and production processes. While eliminating waste and increasing value through process and flow analysis is important, lean process improvement must also focus on achieving competitive productivity. There are five action elements in this step. 

 

Document and publish your future state value stream map
Identify bottlenecks, queues and inefficient within your value stream
Conduct process analysis and productivity studies
Implement process improvement projects for inefficiencies 

  

Step Five: Implement A Resource Scheduling System

Step five consists of planning and scheduling company resources to most effectively meet customer expectations. This means managing inventor levels, material flows and production schedules to meet all customer deliveries 100% of the time. This process typically requires selecting and implementing a computer scheduling system such as ERP to coordinate detail tasks and schedules. It is important to complete the lean process improvements step first so resources are used accurately for true priority management.  This step has five action elements.

 

Document business and manufacturing procedures
Establish and document production and sales plans
Engineer work standards and best practices
Deploy a resource scheduling and planning system
Manage production schedules, customer orders and inventory plan

 

Step Six: Manage and Adjust Internal Resources to Reflect Market Change

The last step is using sales and operating planning  (S&OP) to manage performance of the competitive growth process. S&OP is a structured process to frequently evaluate how current production performance meets current sales results. Competitive growth S&OP extends this balancing to include the action elements of the six steps. S&OP involves all departments of the company to analyze how well the company is meeting customer and market expectations. This includes current and future expectations. This process requires that you measure daily and weekly internal and external performance. Internal adjustments are necessary when external markets change. There are four action elements:

 

Deploy the sales and operations planning process
Monitor external and competitor changes
Evaluate internal performance metrics
Adjust resources and methods to rebalance performance

 

Making your company the best requires understanding the needs and expectations of your customers and markets and then adjusting company resources to best meet those expectations. There is a logical sequence to this process. You must first gather data and information about your markets, customers and competitors. This information allows you to accurately define and measure your performance to customer value drivers. These drivers quantify customer and market expectations.  Armed with accurate customer value drivers, you can define and deploy an effective corporate culture that all employees can understand and follow. Step four involves implementing a focus process improvement program that is designed to exceed the performance of all competitors. Efficient process and resource allows for the efficient scheduling and planning of products and services for customer orders and inventory investment. Finally the S&OP process used to measure performance and make adjustments as markets, customers and competitor changes.

 

The competitive growth process is a holistic method that makes at least 36 months to complete for the typical company. There are 28 action elements across six steps. Each element requires a detail project plan and dedicated resources to implement performance expectations. Being the best requires a strong and structured infrastructure. It also requires competitive productivity. This means providing the best product at the lowest price. Once you achieve this performance, you must maintain it by adjusting and changing processes, products, performance and values as you markets, customers and competitors change.       

 

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Aggressive data tools are ideal for anyone seeking to gain an edge on the Pay per click competitors. Extensive and through keyword research is the key to any effective advertising campaign, so using something that will begin you in the right direct could save you time and money in the long run.

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Most of the time, your competitors have spent money split testing various ad content so they possess the best possible results. This can be a useful gizmo for you personally, as you can now see what they’ve created which will help reduce your CPC as the Quality Score are frequently higher as well.

As opposed to many keyword tools that are available, among the best features about Ispionage is the updates which are presented to you about your keyword research that you have done. Your answers are updated everybody to 3 days, ensuring that you always have the top quality keywords. Furthermore, they’ll also alert you associated with a alterations in your competitor’s ads, and that means you they may have figured anything out and also you could bank on that too.

So what can you really do with all of this info? In the end, it is all about getting the user to click on your ad and take the proper action you would like them to. And this tool will help you not only get campaigns started, however it will even help you monitor and tweak the ads as you go, just like your competitors. Not utilizing a good key word tool like this is like throwing time and money out the window, so make the smart choice and obtain something which will help you immediately.

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In my first job out of college, I had a really unpleasant task every Monday morning. See, I worked at a large regional bank and every Monday morning I had to call a dozen other banks and get all their rates. Saving, checking, loans, mortgage. There was no way to disguise who I was. After about 10 minutes on the phone, the teller was pretty annoyed with me. After 15 minutes, he was ready to hang up on me.

“Wait!” I’d cry.  “How about a 30-year fixed mortgage on a…”

Click.

Back then, monitoring the competition was tough. Today, thanks to the ever growing world of social media, it’s a whole lot easier to find information about your competition.  Here are a few simple tips to get started:

1. Be a Twitter Spy

Set up a Tweetbeep. If you can use Google Alerts you can use Tweetbeep. Just go to Tweetbeep.com and enter your competitors’ names. You’ll be notified when anyone Tweets about your competition. The information you receive will be a gold mine. Your competitors’ clients will tweet about how well (or poorly) the latest pitch went, their employees will complain about working all night to get the new product into beta. A reporter will talk about using them for a source. Customers will talk about pricing. The HR intern will tell you that layoffs are coming today.

Did you hear that something big is happening at a competitor and you can’t wait to be Tweetbeeped? Then just go to http://search.twitter.com and type in search strings like “[Competitor name layoff" "[Competitor name] acquired” “[Competitor name] president” People will share scoops on Twitter that they never would in person or on the phone.

You can also start following your competitors’ executives, managers, employees, interns and contractors. Not to mention, their biggest clients.  When news is coming from the company, you’ll get it from every perspective — giving you the full picture. Of course, don’t be surprised when you get the spin from the company president and PR director and the juicy stuff from the interns and contractors.

2. Get “LinkedIn”

I’m willing to bet you already have a LinkedIn profile and some good connections on the site. But now, it’s time to start mining LinkedIn for information on your competition.  First take a moment to consider what LinkedIn knows about a company:  it knows who just joined a company, it knows who left, it knows who received a promotion and it knows who is connected to whom at other companies. Now, rather than rely on a person to write a company profile, aka Wikipedia, LinkedIn can create an automated feed to pull all this together into a shockingly accurate profile. Go ahead and check out your own company profile by searching here: http://www.linkedin.com/companies.

A quick scan will tell you how many people work at the company and who recently left the company. Seeing who left is not only a great tool if you’re looking to recruit from the competition, it’s also a good way to see if a particular department is in the midst of a shakeup.

You can also identify the companies most connected to your competition. This may help you identify where they recruit their employees, who their biggest clients are, and what strategic alliances are most important.

Company divisions and acquisitions are also listed, allowing you to understand the corporate hierarchy. The information on number of employees, revenue (listed even for many private companies), median age, employee gender and the various schools their employees attended, rounds out the picture.

2. Dive deep with Manta

Manta.com is one of the largest and most popular business information sites on the Internet. Manta has profiles on 63 million plus companies, including yours. The site specializes in hard-to-find information about small businesses and other privately held companies. Membership to the site is free and you can use the free contact management system on the site to track and share competitive information with the rest of your staff. The information on companies varies, but in general, you can find annual revenue, key contacts and number of employees. Premium financial reports are also available for a fee. Can’t find the information you need? The site has a question and answer feature that allows users to post a question that can be addressed by the site’s other members.  

Interested in seeing who is affiliate with your competitors? Visit their company pages on Manta.com and find Manta members who are associated with the company. You can also see who else (maybe your clients and prospects) who are viewing your competitors pages. And, similar to Tweetbeeps for Twitter, you can an alert on your competitors to be notified when something on their pages changes.  (Disclosure: once upon a time I worked at ECNext, the company that owns and operates Manta).

One other point: Your competitors are probably using these same tools to keep tabs on you. Keep an eye on your own social media presence to see the image that you are projecting.

Social media has changed the way we do a lot of things in the business world, including how we keep up on what our competition is up to. Somebody, somewhere out there, is talking about your competitors, opening up a world of information never before available. Now is the time to take advantage of it. Who knows, now may also be the time to take advantage of a 30-year fixed loan, too.

Question by Capt Kirk: Is a BA competitive enough for seeking commission with the USAF as a Public Affairs officer?
I have a B.A. in International Relations and Political Science (double major) and I’d like to seek a commission with the USAF, but I’m not sure a BA will do me any good, as I imagine they seek people with BS / more technical degrees. There is one field, however, namely the 35PX – Public Affairs that the Air Force has which I think I might be able to get into with my degree/majors. Do you think I have a shot getting into that field or alternatively another non-technical career field with my degree?

My initial plan was to work for the federal government after college, but the problem is I don’t really have any experience, so I’ve been considering this for the last couple of weeks. Obviously a few years in the USAF as an officer will greatly increase my chances of getting a good civilian fed. government job and maybe even help me pay for grad school.

As far as the other branches are concerned – I’m not particularly interested in the Army, the Marines seem a little too tough for me, and the Navy – that’s embarrassing but I can’t swim and I get really seasick. I’ve always admired the USAF though and I’ve always been into intelligence + I’m a major tech nerd, so I really think I would fit in best there.

Anyways, that was way too long an explanation. In short, do you think I have a chance becoming an USAF officer with this degree?

Best answer:

Answer by Habib89
it doesn’t really work that way. its not like they say “let’s go look for people with this kind of degree and see if we can make them 35PX officers” it’s more like “does this guy/gal have a good enough application package to be an officer in the USAF?” if so, they’ll commission you and probably put you in a job that you’d be “good” at based on your degree, but they can stick you anywhere they want really. do they prefer tech degrees? yes, but if you have a degree, any degree, and a good GPA and some good leadership or volunteering type experience, then you’ll have a competitive package.

doesn’t hurt to try!

Give your answer to this question below!

Question by missymissshaw: Is he competitive for Navy Officer/OCS (Surface Warfare Officer)?
This is my bf’s brief resume; Your honest opinion is appreciated…

-26 y/o
-clean record/no health issues (in other words, no issues that stand in the way of his attaining the job)
-B.A. in Psychology
-M.A. in Counseling
-1 year psychotherapist/counseling experience
-3 years fulltime walmart work experience (non-management)
-90 asvab (just to give you an idea of his intelligence level)
-No prior military experience

He is open to active or reserve
-His Masters GPA was 3.8
-ACT was 24

Best answer:

Answer by thehashbrown25
What were his SAT/ACT scores?
What was his GPA in college (B.A. & M.A.)?

He would be open to reserve and active. You are really better off contacting the local Officer Navy Recruiter.

This link will take you to the Navy website. Look at the Officer recruiting phone number after punching in your zip code.

http://www.navy.com/findarecruiter/

Add your own answer in the comments!