If there is any industry that understands competitiveness and the importance of staying ahead of the competition, it’s the defense and aerospace engineering industry. The main objective of competitive intelligence is to gain a competitive edge through research and analysis of your competitors and the industry as a whole. When it comes to a boundary pushing, fast changing industry such as aerospace and defense, it’s necessary to at least maintain a certain level of competency in order to stay afloat. By committing to a competitive intelligence investigation with ArchIntel you will not only be able to maintain the industry standard but be able to know where to look next before your competition has the chance.
Competitive Intelligence for Defense and Aerospace Engineering
What makes competitive intelligence different when it comes to assessing aerospace and defense companies compared to other industries? As a whole the aerospace and defense industry is one that takes on a lot of external factors when it comes to decision making. Politics and current events are a major influence on manufacturing trends and sales motives. Aerospace and defense is also a highly international industry meaning that many different country’s laws and customs need to be taken into account when formulating a strategy. Technological advancements in aerospace possibilities are a highly sought-after product that has investors and the public at large watching with great anticipation. All of these factors can lead to intense and critical expectations which is why having the best information at hand can help limit that stress.
Components Most Relevant to Defense and Aerospace Engineering for Competitive Intelligence
While all competitive Intelligence components can provide insight into competitor’s strategies, there are some that lend themselves to informing analysis on aerospace and defense competitors better than others. Components such as headlines in the news, trade show news, and market/stock index lend themselves to being some of the best signifiers into seeing how your competitors are doing. In an industry such as aerospace and defense, knowing the most cutting-edge news and updates are vital for taking the lead. An emerging industry such as aerospace is all about who can do it first and who can do it best. If someone comes out on top it then raises the bar for what is expected from everyone in the industry.
Headlines
Headlines have increasing power when it comes to influence and brand perception. Aerospace and defense are not predominantly consumer-based companies making any news story or article about a company the main way they are perceived. This is important to keep in mind when it comes to assessing yourself, as well as your competitors. These types of stories might not be the big signifiers of what direction competitors are going in, but it can show the public’s awareness, perception, and approval of you and your competitors. While this isn’t the only metric to measure your competition on it is a way to see how you rank within the industry. This can be a great lesson in what works and what doesn’t, without having the make any mistakes yourself.
Of course, a lot of news stories and headlines can have more influence on company direction and business strategy. As mentioned before the defense and aerospace industries pride themselves on cutting edge technology and innovative production methods. Once the news breaks that a company has pushed forward in the capabilities of their technology or the capacity at which they can produce products, the race is on for everyone else to find a way to break that new record. Finding out how these innovations have been might be a factor that leads to a shift in strategy. Whether it be restructuring your manufacturing operations or implementing and adapting technological advancements into your company, deciding which methods you will and won’t adopt is a crucial element to consider. Obviously chasing the competition by doing everything they do isn’t a highly successful plan to take their top spot in the industry but adopting or taking influence from them, in certain situations, could give you a step in the right direction.
Another way that headlines can affect strategy and direction are through current event topics and international news. As stated before the defense and aerospace industry rely heavily on international affairs. International regulations or sanctions can affect business dealings and manufacturing. When it comes to competitors its it could be vital information to know that the country in which they do their manufacturing just changed their laws. Whether these laws relax or tighten regulation could greatly affect their performance. If one of their clients is in a country that has sanctions placed over it they might have to limit or cease business with them. These kinds of announcements can lead to major changes in a competitor’s market share as well as the market as a whole.
Trade Show News
The highly advancing, ever evolving industry of defense and aerospace is all about technology and the biggest showcase of new technology is trade shows. While you may have representatives attending these trade shows, there’s often so much going on that often things get missed or overlooked. Even if you were to try to catch up a week later looking at all the announcements online it’s often hard to find the information most relevant to you. Through a competitive intelligence report only the most pertinent trade show information is addressed giving you a clear look into what is new.
Trade shows are the most concentrated location of technological advancements and industry evolutions. The show aspect of trade show leads exhibitors to save their big announcements and enticing surprises for these types of events. Some announcements might be inflated and more bombastic than actually end up being, but the fact of the matter is that any major innovation in an industry often gets announced at a trade show. It ties back to the importance of headlines and if a major announcement is made at a large industry event it only increases the attention put on it.
Market/Stock Index
Unlike some other industries, defense and aerospace companies are often traded publicly. Because of this there is plenty of information that is provided to the public. This also means that there are plenty of investors with expectations looking to be fulfilled. One of the best things about using indexes for comparing competitors is that it gives you a quick analysis of their productivity and is easy to compare with other competitors as well as yourself. While not a complete and truly honest evaluation of a company indexes allow for a good estimate of a company’s success.
Indexes often can be great places to look for directions in which to go when looking for further information on a company. Often peaks or valleys in a company’s pricing are representations of events triggered by their decision making. Whether it be a new tech announcement or a layoff, there is a reason for this action. The visual representation of a company’s actions is a telling sign of how their business decisions are playing out. If the decision makers at one company are making bad decisions it will be clearly represented in their stock price.
When patterns start to form the next step is to look further into why they are happening. Maybe a competitor has a bad leadership staff that needs replacing, maybe they had recalls, or they could have labor disputes slowing down their production. All of these actions stand as lessons to learn from where you can make sure you are not making the same mistakes as them. This can also be a chance for you to succeed where they are failing. Showing that your leadership is top in the industry or that your workers are provided with enticing benefits can allow you to shine where others aren’t, showing that the industry as a whole does not operate as one. Market/Stock Indexes offer a lot in just a quick overview, it’s a great way to check in on the competition and be able to evaluate them compared to yourself.
Defense and Aerospace Intelligence
We know that defense and aerospace engineering is a highly intense industry where the fight to provide the newest technologies before anyone else is at the top of many priorities. There are many challenges that arise in operating in an emerging industry, but we can help alleviate some of the pressure. By allowing ArchIntel to provide you with a top tier competitive intelligence report you will be provided with only the most relevant information about your competitors and the industry as a whole. This way you can gain a competitive edge through having a better understanding of how everyone else around you operates. While you’ve been busy making sure everything is operating as planned on your end, we’ve been there making sure you have all the information you need in order to make decisions for the future and limit competitor interference.