Competitive intelligence has become a vital tool when it comes to gaining market share and staying relevant in your industry. With such a desire for this knowledge many different groups have started offering competitive intelligence consulting, but what makes ArchIntel stand out when providing competitive insight?
Competitive intelligence is an all-encompassing view of your competitors and industry as a whole. This is provided through publicly sourced information such as news articles and financial statements, among other records and reports detailing competitor’s actions. Through this information we are able to help provide you with an edge, informing your decisions on where to go next and how to handle industry threats.
We know that operating your own business is a full-time job already. Not everyone has the time and effort to keep a constant eye on competitors and industry changes. ArcheIntel is able to alleviate the pressure of having to watch those outside of your company. While you are busy making sure everything internally is operating as planned, we can make sure those external elements won’t interfere.
ArcheIntel’s Competitive Intelligence Reporting
ArcheIntel is dedicated to offering the best in competitive intelligence. Whether it be consistent reporting or recommended analysis we want to make sure you have the best tools at your disposal. When it comes to providing you with an all-encompassing competitive intelligence report, we structure our findings in a few different categories.
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Competitors in the News
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Competitor Human Capital Movement
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Competitor Shifts
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Competitor Job Listings: New Positions
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Trade Show News
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Social Media Review
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Market/Stock Index
You can see our components of competitive intelligence for more details. These components all start as introductions of where we should look for information on competitors. Depending on the size of your competitors and industry as a whole, some of these components may have more of an influence than others. For example, if you were in the defense and the aerospace engineering industry, something like market/stock index might hold more weight as most of your competitors are publicly traded companies who rely on shareholder approval and investor funding. Likewise, if you are in an online clothing company it might be more valuable to look at your competitor’s social media to see what kind of direction they are going in. While not all of these components might provide us with a wealth of insight, we will make sure to look into all of them to make sure that you are getting the full picture of your competitor’s actions.
Competitor Mapping
One of the best ways to visualize the disparity between you and a competitor is through competitor mapping. Competitor mapping consists of listing your company, brand, or product in relation to a competitor’s counterpart on a scatter plot, comparing on the axis variables such as price, perception, or location. This is a clear and easy way to see where you stand in the industry compared to your competitors. For example, if you own a chain of restaurants you could see where you and your competitors are situated geographically. This way you could see if an area is oversaturated with restaurants or if there are any locations that are in need of coverage. In another example, you might want to see how the public views you and your competitors. Are you perceived as higher end? Family friendly? What about a sense of trustworthiness? All of these factors are great things to know, especially when establishing a brand, and competitor mapping is a great way to present that information.
The Benefits of Competitive Intelligence Consulting
As you can see from some of our methodology, competitive intelligence can have a lot of benefits. You can also see that there are a lot of time-consuming elements that need proper dedication in order to be reported effectively. ArchIntel’s main objective when providing competitive intelligence consulting is to make sure you have all the information you need so that you don’t have to spend the time searching yourself. This way we can present only the most vital information to you, allowing for clear and concise decisions to be made.
One of the biggest benefits of competitive intelligence is getting an outside look on an industry that you have spent years engrossed in. Those who spend so much time thinking about and working for their own organizations can often get stuck in a stagnant mindset on how to run things and where to go next. It can be hard for companies like these to recognize new technologies, trends, and threats; especially if things have worked out for them in the past. One of the biggest threats to successful companies is their complacency and false sense of security, created by staying in the lead for so long. Industries change, and there will always be new and more appealing ways to do business. No one can stay number one forever by doing the exact same thing for decades on end. One of the best ways to know how and when to change is through competitive intelligence.
Through competitive intelligence you can guarantee that you will get an unbiased, realistic evaluation of your competitors and your industry as a whole, so that you can get a true assessment of how potentially dangerous a threat can be. It can be hard to consider new ideas and strategies when you have been doing things the same way for so long. ArchIntel’s competitive intelligence reporting allows for new ideas to be brought to attention with the proper information to back it up.
By having someone dedicated to researching competitors you know that you will get all of the pertinent information needed, in a timely manner. Some organizations might spend time researching competitors but often they often do so coinciding with other tasks they are working on, delaying the reporting of their findings. Without having someone dedicated to researching competitive intelligence, findings might not be realized until it is too late to act on them.
Industry Threats
There are plenty of external threats that can harm your company. While you can’t remove all possibility of threats, you can anticipate them and properly assess their potential impairment. Competitive intelligence can provide you with insight into competitor’s plans for expansion, restructuring, or investing that could have drastic effects on your business operations. By knowing about these competitor strategies as soon as possible you have the time to take precaution and create a plan of your own to soften their impact on you.
It’s important to note that not all threats may be relevant to your operations. For example, a competitor could be looking to expand into a new territory, but you might not have any interest in that territory. When we provide competitive intelligence information to you, we make sure only the most pertinent threats are addressed. It is important that we understand your goals and objectives beforehand, as to work with you in order to fulfill these aspirations. While meeting with we discuss how you view your company, if that alines with consumer perception, and where you would like to head in the future. This way we are able to start looking for competitive information that can benefit this strategy.
Technological Changes
Technology is always changing. It’s hard to find a company in any industry who still operates the same as they did 30 years ago, while still holding the same market share as back then. Of course, some technological advancements may be superfluous, and their learning curve might initially lower your productivity, but for the most part you are better off adapting to change and adopting new methods.
One of the best ways to get in early to a new industry advancement is through competitive intelligence. Elements of our reports such as trade show news and competitor human capital movement might show trends in where competitors, and the industry at large, are headed. Getting in on the ground floor when it comes to technological advancements can be a great benefit. If you are able to adopt a method of efficiency before your competitors it can lead to a head start, racing to the next stage.
Of course, there are times when competitive intelligence will find that a competitor is using a new technology before you. You don’t want to just play catch up with competitors as there’s no way to gain a market lead through that strategy. When we report on a competitor making changes to their methods and improving on efficiency, we want to make sure you have a plan on where to go from there. Whether it be finding a new way to increase efficiency, incorporate technology, or compensating in other areas of operations.
Competitive intelligence consulting can be a valuable service to your business. Keeping a constant eye on competitors and knowing how to anticipate the detriment of their actions is a large task. When you are already preoccupied with maintenance, researching, and reporting for your own company it can be hard to make sure you are doing the same with competitors. ArchIntel can provide consistent reports that track trends, innovations, and threats that are clear and concise so that you can make the proper decisions for future strategies.