Posts Tagged ‘step’

In the information age, the value of information cannot be underestimated. Some big companies, in fact, have entire departments devoted to gathering competitive information.

You must be careful however, not to get so wrapped up in gathering information that you wait too long to act. You must be able to act early on in your research into a competitor’s upcoming product launch. By beating your competition, you can close out your competitor’s distribution channel. But if you dilly dally too long, your options to respond to a competitor’s move becomes smaller.

One company that provides training in competitive intelligence for example, warns entrepreneurs not to lie or misrepresent themselves or who they work for. In fact, there’s a law – the Economic Espionage Act – that governs the legalities of gathering competitive intelligence.

Here are a few tips on how you can get information about your competition so you can use them in creating effective marketing brochures for your ad campaign:

1. Exploit open sources

There is no better way to jumpstart than with Google. This database is the most used search engine in the Web. On Google, search for the company’s name or the industry to find out more about the competition.

Other sources include search engines for industry-focused Web pages, market research, economic analysis, as well as company reports that sell research by the page. This way, you can buy only the pages you need, instead of having to buy the entire report. But before you pay for your information, check whether you can get the same information for free from other sites.

]]>

2. Get the help of everyone at your company and as many customers, vendors, and others as possible.

Talking to people remains the most effective way to gather intelligence. Use your employees to be your eyes and ears in the marketplace, in your industry – even in your company’s reception area.

For instance, your receptionist can be one of your most valuable sources of information. I know of a brochure printing company that routinely keeps vendors waiting for 10 to 15 minutes after they arrive at the reception area to allow the receptionists to listen in on their conversation. More often than not, these vendors will talk about other brochure printing companies or deals that have been offered to them. The receptionist then has been instructed to immediately email these information to the concerned staff so he or she is better prepared to negotiate when it’s time for them to meet.

Within your company, there is a wealth of information. I am aware of a large pharmaceutical firm that pirates staff from other pharmaceutical companies so that they can get inside information. To help employees understand what kind of information you’re after, circulate a list of the factors that are critical to your company’s success and let them know that these factors will determine their individual successes.

3. Cultivate relationships with competition.

There is no better way to get information than to get it directly from the horse’s mouth. Most of these businesspeople know that in order to get information, they also have to give information. As they say, you are going to be much more interesting to talk to if you have something that they would be interested in. You have to be careful though, that you do not give too much.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit:
Marketing Brochures, Brochure Printing

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:

]]>

 

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.       

 

More Competitive Intelligence Articles