Getting to a Yes With Competitive Intelligence by Octopus Intelligence
This article is called Getting to a Yes with Competitive Intelligence. You keep putting tenders forward for the business and are very confident that you can not do any better. You have answered the questions well. And you know your product is the best thing since sliced bread. Weeks later, you could not believe your lousy luck; someone else got the contract, but you were thanked for a firm bid. Very gratifying. Over time, this scenario continues, and you become increasingly frustrated and realise the same competitor is regularly winning bids.
Buying the business
Your managing director is starting to ask awkward questions and wants to be more involved in the tender process. Your sales team (who are keen to keep their jobs), would have you believe that the competitor is buying the business with low pricing. Or perhaps they are offering inducements? It’s likely that neither is true, but you still want answers.
Competitive Intelligence can help
Competitive Intelligence (CI) is the process of tactical and strategic market analysis. Competitors and industries allow decision-makers to make informed long-term and short-term decisions, take advantage of gaps in the market, and exploit competitor strengths and weaknesses. CI minimises uncertainty, and companies that use CI tend to be less surprised by their competitors’ actions. Why are you losing out?
Why are you losing out?
Suppose you continually lose contracts to the same competitor, and you need to know why. It would help if you defined what your (Key Intelligence) questions are to focus your information collection activities and look at several competitors to create robust comparisons. Building a competitive intelligence function in your business will encourage your sales and operations teams to willingly offer relevant and ongoing information for you to analyse it and turn it into valued intelligence.
Find the answers
Working with your suppliers, sales team, operational staff and current clients, you need to find answers to questions like:
- What is the company doing so well?
- And what are they doing so right?
- What are their sales targets?
- What are their pricing policies?
- And what does their contract look like?
- Who are their customers?
- And are they happy with the service they receive?
How are you going to use it?
Once you have a picture of your competitive environment, you need to decide how to use it. Prospecting your competitor’s customers can enhance your efforts, and you will have more success as you can manage your competitor’s strengths and exploit their weaknesses.
As you have collected complaints about your competitors, you know what they are good and bad at. If you know their contracts and pricing policies, you can confidently undercut deals. And if you know your competitors, then you can be headhunting their best staff, the ones that are winning all those tenders. Everyone has their price, but recruiting the wrong person without understanding the big picture may relieve your competitor of a problem.
Finally
This article is called Getting to a Yes with Competitive Intelligence.
We are Octopus. The Global People-Powered Competitive Intelligence Agency.
Outsmart your competition. Make the unknown known. Octopus helps you gain clarity in complex markets. With clients and tentacles around the world, we deliver sharp, actionable competitive intelligence through a blend of deep primary (HUMINT) and secondary research. If you’re looking to make smarter decisions, beat the competition, and reduce uncertainty, we’re the partner you want on your side.
