TABLE OF CONTENTS About this chapter
Business success is as much determined by the actions of competitors as the actions of the organization itself. For example, the success of Coca-Cola is partly determined by the actions of Pepsi Cola. This chapter explores the increasingly vital practice of competitive intelligence and examines how organizations can use such a function to support/develop successful marketing strategies. Gathering, analysing and disseminating intelligence relating to competitors' strategies, goals, procedures and products greatly underpins competitiveness.
Marketing strategy aims to generate sustainable competitive advantage. The process is influenced by industry position, experience curves, value effects and other factors, such as product life cycle. In any given market place, businesses must adopt defensive and attacking strategies. Such actions aim to maintain and/or increase market share. Organizations need to ensure their strategic position is relevant to current/future market conditions.
After reading this chapter, you will understand:
The basic competitive intelligence cycle.
The nature and development of competitive advantage.
Experience and value effects.
Offensive and defensive strategies.
The use of the product/market matrix in strategic development.
PIMS analysis.
Competitive intelligence has something of an image problem. The term conjures up an image of elicit activities involving private detectives, telephoto lenses and hidden microphones. While such images are not completely unappealing, they are far removed from the truth. Put simply, competitive intelligence is a structured, ethical and legal process designed to gather, analyse and distribute data/information relating to current, and potential, competitors. The key to successful competitive intelligence...
