How to Gather Competitive Research

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  adalvarez@...04/03/07 Report as spam
  1

  Very good introduction to the subject

  Jane does a really good introduction to the subject. After reading this you will not be "the" expert, but will not a great deal to begin your search in a legal and ethical way.
  
  Congratulations!!
  
  Best regards,
  
  Lic Adrian Alvarez
  Founding Partner
  Midas Consulting
  Your Competitive Intelligence Partner in Latin America, Spain & Portugal
  +54-11-4775-8983
  adrian_alvarez@midasconsulting.com.ar
  www.midasconsulting.com.ar
  Visita mi blog sobre inteligencia competitiva en http://inteligenciacompetitivaenar.blogspot.com/

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  ksawka04/03/07 Report as spam
  2

  Great Advice

  BNET's series on competitive intelligence is spot on. I especially like their advice on how to frame the questions, and to not expect competitive information to be "served up on a silver platter." And, in the era of HP Pretexting, the advice on ethics is critical.

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  anupam.gaur04/03/07 Report as spam
  3

  Great article

  It is an amazing article. quite an insight especially for young executives and management students.
  
  Good job.

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  ankana.chakraborty04/04/07 Report as spam
  4

  Very Informative

  A very informative article for people who seek competitive information, just based on information & data available on the internet.

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  pvsrao04/13/07 Report as spam
  5

  COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

  GOOD STart for a desk research to a serious need

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  fahad_siddiqui04/17/07 Report as spam
  6

  great

  i think its very helpfull as in these days most students dont want to swim in books & would like to be helped by technolodgy.

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  melsfive04/20/07 Report as spam
  7

  How ot Gather Competitive Research

  Perfect, to the point. THANK YOU!

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  seth_aryee@...05/08/07 Report as spam
  8

  COMPETITIVE RESEARCH

  COMPETITIVE RESEARCH
  This is a great article. But it will do much more if a sample competitive analysis by an un-named Company is used to show the way. I personally would like to have this. Thanks
  
  Seth

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  cvarley05/08/07 Report as spam
  9

  You left out the most important part

  The Market. What does the market want? What are they buying now? Any strategy crafted without taking this into consideration is worthless. Read Beinhocker's The Origin of Wealth for an understanding of how markets--not companies--innovate, and how that impacts strategy.

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  mushtaq76505/08/07 Report as spam
  10

  compititive advantage

  the article is great and had eloborated well the focus on core compitencies specifically i think will help me a lot

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  amichaels@...05/13/07 Report as spam
  11

  Five Forces Analysis ? Starts With The Right Data

  Excellent article. In addition to the current data sources, another category that should be added:
  
  "Industry Data for Five Forces Analysis"
  
  In the article, Jane Hodges, the author, recommends using the Five Forces Analysis in the "BIG IDEA" section for building the basic framework for Competitive Analysis (by leveraging the ideas of Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter). I agree with Jane 100%.
  
  There is at least one company that provides global industry information on over 8,000 "strategically relevant industries" ? data at the right level to perform a Five Forces Analysis. (Examples of the right level to do an industry analyses include: Mainframe Computers; Frozen Pizza; Personal Motorcycle Insurance; Heart Pacemaker Manufacturing; etc.)
  
  Alan S. Michaels

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  georgiajthomas@...06/24/07 Report as spam
  12

  More information please.

  you mention that there is a company which supplies all this information ....but you don't mention the company's name... Please advise.

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  jessnchi01/31/08 Report as spam
  13

  companies who can help

  There are many companies who can help. You can check out the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) at www.scip.org and check their services directory under the Resources tab. Or you can check out www.explorasia.com who focusses on the Asia region. www.gbrsupport.com is another good site you can check that even gives detailed report outlines as a reference for your own research.

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  babyap2002@...05/15/07 Report as spam
  14

  The perfect guide

  With this guide-looking at a rivals strengths/weaknesses is quite a breeze.

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  sharmas5@...06/05/07 Report as spam
  15

  Sumana

  I was delighted to read about Porter's five forces and SWOT analysis. As you point out, these concepts have been criticized in the recent past. However, while people may disagree about their exact dsign (which is why several modifications have been proposed), they still remain to be important concepts, particularly so, for those interested in furthering their competitive intelligence.
  
  I was trying to build an aurgument in my research and was feeling a little stuck. Your article has done me much good and now I can move on!

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  athinan@...08/08/07 Report as spam
  16

  Great Work.

  Great work. Well said. Need more research on this topic. Thank you.

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  daluoa08/09/07 Report as spam
  17

  greatwork

  i find the article very informative, and i am hopeful that in the not too distant future i would be able to present an article on a case study of my company (in nigeria).

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  transchick08/23/07 Report as spam
  18

  BNET

  your articles are begining to changa the face of my business keep it up Vincent Banda-Zambia

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  ArthurW08/23/07 Report as spam
  19

  Good article. Lot's more could be said, but this covers most of the basics.

  Great article - it makes CI look easy.
  
  (For the record - yes, I guess this is a sales plug - we wrote a similar guide on CI - a brief guide to competitive intelligence at AWARE - http://www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk/resources/competitor-analysis.htm)

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  ciguru08/23/07 Report as spam
  20

  Web Data Extraction

  Web data extraction tools and services are vital when performing competitive research. We were able to extract our competition prices and product mix on a daily, weekly and monthly using these tools. There are many of this tools. We had the most success using a hosted tool provided by a company in Seattle called QL2. All you have to do is identify the sites you'd like gather data from and they provide you with data you need. There website is www.ql2.com

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  stefanieantunes@...08/23/07 Report as spam
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  What come next

  This is a great intro. Very informative. I like how easy it is to read. I've been doing CI for about 8 years now and one of the things that drives me crazy is how boring many CI people are. Many of the same stereotypes of Accountants or Lawyers could be used for CI folks. Their writing is often so full of geek-speak that an executive can hardly get through it. We should all make things this easy to read and understand and CI depts might have a chance at the open-door to the executive suites. My goal is always to make it easy to understand. Leave the geek-speak for behind the report (like html text behind the nice graphical email)
  
  Keep up the good work BNET.
  
  Stefanie Antunes
  Pythia Consulting

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  upeshp08/27/07 Report as spam
  22

  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  Well written

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  oyed08/28/07 Report as spam
  23

  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  Great! Fabulously splendid.

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  filchamproject09/09/07 Report as spam
  24

  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  This is brilliant... highly insightful! It will surely benefit our support group especially the young lad who's just taken up his new volunteering assignment to lead the research programme of our Young People's Project.
  
  Well done and thank you!

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  srini200701/31/08 Report as spam
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  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  Modern approach

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  SiteBooster01/31/08 Report as spam
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  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  A quicker and more to the point angle from which you can spy on your competitor is to look at your competitor fomr SEO point of view. In other words, you find out about a few factors easily which are:
  
  * Indexation
  * Search Engine Ranking
  * Link Popularity
  * Link Analysis
  
  Then, you find your weak points and start copying your competition to strngthen where you are weak.
  
  The result will be to improve your website up to what your competitors are in the eyes of search engines!

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  cbroming02/01/08 Report as spam
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  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  nicely done - appropriate length and depth for this publication.

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  opeyeni02/01/08 Report as spam
  28

  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  I think this is a wonderful introduction. It is exposed

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  meena.gulati02/04/08 Report as spam
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  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  it has provides the insights about a very interesting topic for people like me who need to understand the basics.. good work

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  business882804/15/08 Report as spam
  30

  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  Good paper, thanks

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  melcoool07/02/08 Report as spam
  31

  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  Really helpful and useful to me. Thank you!

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  qsumitro07/03/08 Report as spam
  32

  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  Very helpful. Thank you!

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  blissfulthinking03/23/09 Report as spam
  33

  Cost Comparisons

  In Section 1, Step 4 Jane mentions "How much does it cost you and your competitor to produce comparable products? Does one of you enjoy a cost advantage?"
  
  Unfortunately, your competitors are unlikely to tell you where they manufacture their goods (unless they are Nike or Timberland and do it for social responsibility reasons).
  
  Fortunately, there is another way. There is a company called Panjiva - http://panjiva.com - that can help with that problem. They provide a manufacturer search engine that can tell you which customers are using a particular manufacturer, and also have a service where you can look up a company in the US, and find out where it manufactures its products. Very useful data.
  
  Armed with the names of a company's manufacturers, you can then call the manufacturers and get a quote on a similar product. Don't forget to also evaluate customs and duties costs and transportation costs from the country of origin - depending on the country, they can be substantial.

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  NeilKaty10/28/09 Report as spam
  34

  RE: How to Gather Competitive Research

  Really worth reading!