eCompetitors

Competitive Intelligence Issues

Problem: How can I network with other CI professionals to gain learn from them?

Solution: Try: SCIP.  It’s a relatively small group with an even smaller group of active members. However, I’m glad I joined because it was worth it to network with a half dozen people I did not know before. (If you want to avoid the membership fee and you are a LinkedIn user, I do not think you have to be a SCIP member to join the SCIP LinkedIn group - but they can change that rule whenever they want so please check there for the official policy.) Also very useful is the Competitive Intelligence Group in Ning, as pointed out by Giora Ketter in the comment section. I use it frequently. 
For CI professional also interest in Corporate Planning & Global Industry Segmentation, there is a LinkedIn Group for that under the same name; as well as a professional networking group for the same.  

Feel free to use the comment area to submit your competitive intelligence-related problem, and we’ll do our best to add it to the list above along with our suggested solution.

Suggestion: visit eCompetitors.com now.

Problem: The CEO wants a better corporate planning process; and he/she doesn’t know where to turn.

Solution: The corporate planning process has become a nightmare at many companies because of a long list of reasons. Future articles will appear in this blog listing the common problems and recommended solutions, but the number one issue, by far, is that companies forget step one. What is step one in any good corporate planning process?  Step one is clearly identifying, at this moment in time, what lines of businesses (industries) the company competes in today.  This is a very different question than asking how is the company organized. And this step should come before discussing the new corporate vision, etc. Understanding your current position (Point A) is step one. Deciding what and where the future position (Point B) should be, and how to get there, includes a great many tasks, which also will be covered by additional articles to be published in this blog.

Problem: Corporate executives can’t agree on the definition of an industry. Some executives want to use our organizational units and/or our marketing segmentation and/or our product catalogues as proxies for our lines of business.

Solution: For a definition of an industry, try: “ One or more products and / or services that are direct substitutes that are sold by one or more businesses to one or more external customers, and where the activities for developing the product or delivering the service are similar.” [by Alan S. Michaels after using Michael Porter's methodologies for 22 years.]

Problem: We can’t find industry information at the line-of-business level to support our strategic planning efforts which leverage Michael E. Porter’s five forces methodology.

Solution: Try: eCompetitors.com

Problem: We find it difficult to align our thousands of projects in concert with our corporate strategies.

Solution: The most common reason why companies are not able to correctly align projects with corporate strategy is because they try to do so via organizational departments. They try to treat all departments equally in terms of budget changes. The correct solution begins with clarifying the company’s lines of business. At any moment in time, a company is made up of ‘N’ number of businesses - and the list of businesses should not be a secret, especially not to the employees and the planning staff. A major part of corporate planning includes: determining the optimal mix of business units; determining the re-investment to be made in each line of business; and ensuring that business units coordinate their activity sharing to optimize corporate returns.  Assuming these activities are performed correctly, project alignment (the thousands of projects) should be evaluated in terms of their specific benefits/costs to the business units they specifically support.

Problem: Our planning department isn’t sure how to define a the term “industry”.

Solution: Try: “ One or more products and / or services that are direct substitutes that are sold by one or more businesses to one or more external customers, and where the activities for developing the product or delivering the service are similar.” - Alan S. Michaels after using Porter’s methodologies for 22 years.

Feel free to use the comment area to submit your strategic planning related problem, and we’ll do our best to add it to the list above along with our suggested solution.

Suggestion: visit eCompetitors.com now.

Market  Planning, Market Segmentation & Market Research Issues

Problem: The Global Marketing Executive wants an industry-based view of the global economy.

Solution: Try the: Global Industry Dashboard

Problem: Corporate market research is all over the place - how do we coordinate our efforts?

Solution: Fortunately for thousands of market research firms, companies typically perform many market research projects year after year without coordinating their efforts and without systematically building upon their market knowledge beyond cataloging and re-using prior studies.
- Without using a database management system, which is beyond the scope of the marketing department of most companies, market research is typically a constant stream of one-off events.
- With or without the use of a database, market planning, which begins with market segmentation, should begin with the critical issue of market scope. Specifically, what is the expected informational needs required to support the relevant businesses involved? Answering this question should determine the relevant market scope for the company’s market research projects.
- Market scope is a fancy but imprecise term which includes multiple dimensions. It is best understood by first defining industry scope.
- The purpose of industry scope is to divide the entire industry (the industry competitive playing field) into its strategically relevant parts, by product variety and buyer type, and then to locate each competitor in the industry segment(s) in which they currently compete (and in those segments they are likely to enter). The rows of the industry matrix represent strategically relevant product varieties. The columns of the matrix represent buyer types, both channels and end users. The goal is to group the industry’s buyers into the most strategically relevant categories based upon their needs, how they buy and use the product or service, where they are located, and the cost of serving them. 
- Market scope, for companies which compete in multiple businesses (industries), refers to the industry scope and market scope of the sum of all industries in which the company competes. It is important that market scope and buyer types for each corporate business unit reflect the strategically relevant buyer types for each unique industry.  A common mistake that companies make is to first create a list of generic buyer types and to use that list for each business unit. It may be quick; it may be helpful for sales coverage activities; but it misses a lot of strategic insights. Resist compromising on one company-wide market segmentation scheme.
- Companies should create a master framework for all market research for all industries they compete in. As individual research projects are initiated and completed, they should feed into the master framework, without losing their industry-specific strategically-relevant information.
- A detailed analysis for understanding segmentation is presented in Michael Porter’s book Competitive Advantage.  

Feel free to use the comment area to submit your marketing-related problem, and we’ll do our best to add it to the list above along with our suggested solution.

Suggestion: visit eCompetitors.com now.