Competitive IntelligenceBrian Groth’s view of some of the items that make up a good Competitive Intelligence program

February 2013

Table of Contents

1. Overview & Approach

2. Getting Started

3. Supporting Sales & Marketing

4. Taking your CI program further

Overview & Approach

A good Competitive Intelligence Program

A good Competitive Intelligence Program needs to drive product innovation, forecasting and sales & marketing strategy through competitive product evaluations, sales analysis and market research that together provides in-depth competitive profiles and strategic direction. All together, this enables an organization to: Optimize distinct business capabilities to gain competitive advantage Perform analysis that allows senior management to make more

informed decisions that then influence product planning, product marketing, etc.

Improve understanding of the industry you compete in, for better forecasting and planning

Drive product, sales and marketing innovation and strategy

Mission, Strategies, Activities & Deliverables

Evolve and maintain a scalable competitive intelligence program to drive product, sales and marketing innovation and strategy through competitive product evaluations, sales analysis and research that together provides in-

depth competitive profiles and strategic direction

Competitive Product Evaluations

Competitive Labs

on-going &

as-needed

Partner & Customer

interviews on-site & at

events

Developer, Integrator, Admin and Marketing Materials

Competitive Sales Analysis

Win/Loss Analysis

(CRM data) & Ad-Hoc Via Sales

Customer & Partner

Interviews on-site & at

events

Industry Perception through Events &

Social Media

Competitive Research

Analyst Reports &

3rd Party Data

Quarterly & Annual

Financials

Market Opportunity Analysis (MOA) & Customer

Needs

Missionto guide

the strategies

Strategies

to identify each

activity

ActivitiesThe day-

today work

Establish a rhythm to update content and create new content as-needed based on new product releases or announcements. Ensure the content is discoverable and searchable, with applicable permissions as needed. Content includes: • Sales guidance and competitive product overviews• Technical product evaluations and comparisons• Marketing briefs with suggested marketing strategies and tactics • Executive-Level SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) reports and metrics with revenue and market share trends

Deliverables

Areas of Influence

Focus on competitors in the strategic grouping for your product

Product Evaluation

s

Mar

ketin

g

Sales

Analys

is

Physical Lab

Cloud-hosted Labs

Sales Approach

Win/Loss Analysis

Analyst Reports & Quarterly Financials

Go-To-Market Approach

Campaigns,MarComms,Events

Product Planning

Mar

ketin

g

Stra

tegy

Sales Strategy

Areas to Influence: Product, Sales, Marketing, and Executives for investment, M&A and directional inputActivities: To produce content & insights that

are used for everything from day-to-day sales and marketing efforts to executive-level presentationsDeliverables: The content delivered to key stakeholders- Technical evaluations to explain the

competitive product- Marketing briefs to explain the

competitors marketing and positioning- Sales briefs to explain how the competitor

sells and to help overcome common objections versus them

- Executive-level summaries to explain the competitor’s financials, trends and overall strategy

- Metrics/KPIs pertinent to sales, marketing, product performance and overall

Getting Started

Start Small, Plan Big

1. Competitive Profiles: Start with a focus on helping sales, which will grow content and create in-depth competitive profiles while immediately making an impact and learning about the top competitive needs to support sales

2. Strategic Direction: Work towards the mission to also provide strategic direction using these questions to help evaluate the competitive landscape:

1. Strategic Groups: What are the right strategic groups to focus on?

2. Business Focus: What are the competitor’s objectives and strategies? What's their level of commitment to this business?

3. Positioning: What's their product's positioning and the overall company's positioning?

4. Distribution: What's their distribution and partner (direct sales, integration, etc.) strategy?

5. Partners: Which partners may eventually offer competing products?

6. Customer Satisfaction: Where do they rank in customer satisfaction surveys?

7. Technology: Who may become a competitor as technologies merge? What new technology has the potential to disrupt the market?

8. M&A: Which weak competitors might merge or be bought out to strengthen another competitor?

Which competitors to start with?

Get OpinionsAsk executives, sales, engineering, customer and partners the following questions, making note of the products & competitors:1. Which competitors are we seeing in

top accounts (losing to or evaluated against) and why?

2. Which competitors do you feel are the greatest threat today and why?

3. Which competitors will be our greatest threat in the future and why?

Analyze DataUse internal sales opportunity (CRM), revenue data and existing Market Opportunity Analysis to determine:1. Which solutions are the top revenue

drivers, and which competitors offer similar solutions?

2. Which competitors are identified the most in sales opportunities in CRM?

3. Which solutions and industries will drive future revenue, based on the MOA?

Eventually, group the competition based on technical capabilities, reach/distribution capability, geography, industry focus, solution type, target audience, price points, analyst reports, or our own segmentation. This will give us competitive groups for strategic direction and focus for future competitive intelligence.

Aggregate the results, initially giving more weight to the input & data from Sales to select the first few competitors to focus on

How to gather competitive information?

1. Getting hands-on with the product is the first approach, but not always possible.

2. Interview customers and partners about competitive products if possible.

3. Look at what strategic grouping your product fits into. Such as, communications, news service, gaming. Or more specific, such as instant messaging, e-mail, online portal, first-person shooter gaming, etc. Who do analysts (Gartner, Forrester, etc.) compare you against in these groups? Or even, which group

do the analysts place you in? (you might have to pay for these)

Who are the competitors in these groups? If you don’t know, take a look at free analyst reports and search for your product at sites such as:

http://www.crunchbase.com/ - search for your product name and see who they list as competitors

http://compete.com – free metrics and a view of the competitor’s metrics

http://Wikipedia.org – there is usually a list of competitors or links to a list of companies in this industry (aka, strategic grouping)

http://quora.com – search for your product name

Supporting Sales & Marketing

Deliver:• Competitive product overviews• Competitive sales guidance• Searchable/discoverable content• Ad-hoc requests as needed• Content update rhythm

Through:• Win/Loss Analysis (CRM)• Customer & Partner Interviews• Hands-on Labs• Ad-Hoc Sales Feedback• Social Media Listening & industry events

Primary types of competitive sales and marketing materials

Competitive Sales Content Competitive Marketing Content

Guidance

This should be focused on a single competitor and quickly explain:1. How the competitor sells (their sales pitch,

with/through partners, etc.)2. Overcoming sales objections versus the

competitor with guidance when a defensive position is needed

3. Sales guidance for times when you can take the lead against the competitor using our strongest selling points

4. Insights from competitive win/loss analysis against the competitor

1. How the competitor presents themselves in the industry at/with details focused on:• Events they participate in or host• Advertising for their products and overall

brand• Social media efforts• Case studies

2. How the competitor markets with or through partners

3. Customer satisfaction ratings for the competitor versus us

Product Details

1. Details of the competitive product2. Their strengths versus our product3. Their weaknesses versus our product4. Screenshots and/or videos

1. Details of the competitive product2. Their strengths versus our product3. Their weaknesses versus our product4. Screenshots and/or videos5. Opportunities we have in the marketplace

against the competitor’s product6. Threats we face with the current or assumed

future of the competitor’s product

Tiers of Competitors to guide focus & content

• Technical product evaluations and comparisons based on product installs or customer interviews

• Marketing briefs with suggested marketing strategies and tactics • Sales briefs and battlecards with suggested sales strategies and tactics• Executive-Level SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) reports and

competitor summaries • Metrics with revenue, market share and so on

• Technical product evaluations and comparisons based on product installs or marketing materials

• Sales briefs and battlecards with suggested sales strategies and tactics

• Technical product evaluations and comparisons based on marketing materials

back

Taking your CI program further

Topics that a Competitive Intelligence Program includes are:

CI Usage and Allocation: Create a communication and governance framework to insure relevant competitive intelligence usage for multiple end users

Determination practices for defining who are the end users and what are their unique needs

Create consistency in reports for usage among different organization units

Maximize the ROI through effective usage of competitive intelligence

Scenario Planning & Modeling: Anticipate competitor actions and reactions to enable action and optimize response

Use systems thinking to develop scenarios that predict future market and competitor behavior

Develop a system of rank-and-order to evaluate the likelihood of outcomes

Employ scenario planning to break traditional organizational “world views”

Establishing Competitive Intelligence : Value & ROI Effectively managing CI initiatives to ensure the most value-add possible

Unlock the value of competitive intelligence

Discover where competitive intelligence can generate high ROI

Competitive Landscape Analysis: Tools and techniques to identify existing and emerging competitive elements

Identify latent (unspoken, unmet) and future customers needs

Address the full breadth of the competitive landscape

Learn the science-based framework for forecasting the future of competition and objectively identifying strategic opportunities and threats

Social Media Intelligence: Use social media to gain competitor insights and anticipate future customer behaviors

Listen, categorize and analyze social media conversations to gain intelligence

Data management practices for effective usage and analytics

Converting social media data into customer and competitor insights

Evaluate tools and techniques for collecting and categorizing social media data

Contact

Brian Groth

Groth.Brian@gmail.com

@BrianGroth

http://www.BrianGroth.com

http://BrianGroth.Wordpress.com