As a first step, you need to understand whether all the 12 companies are actually in the same market, even though they all appear to be developing the same kind of product. So, you need to think about who the ultimate customer is, what the 12 companies offer and what are their capabilities and strategies towards their and potential new customers.

It is quite likely that the customer bases for some of the 12 companies will be quite different. Some may target high-value customers, some smaller niche customers. Although they are offering similar products they are not all really competing for the same customer. However some will be. So you need to understand this and focus on those that are actively competing with you or have the capabilities to (e.g. financial strength, and expressed interest). This does not mean that you should ignore the remaining companies. They may not currently be competing with you but, as they are producing similar systems, they do have the capabilities to compete with you. It is a question of emphasis and prioritisation.

Things to look at are

1. financial capabilities - gathered from accounts, stock analyst reports, etc.
2. indications of current strategy - what are they doing now
3. positioning - how do they see themselves, and how do customers view them
4. strengths & weaknesses
5. business outlook - where are the companies heading, what are their plans, etc.

This is a very brief overview. There is much more that can be covered. An approach that I recommend for competitor analysis is not to think in terms of "how do I analyse the 12 companies" but "what will I do with the information and analysis".

This approach will help you decide what information you need, and what to do with it. Each piece of information you gather needs to pass what some call the "So what" test. The "So what" test asks "What is the importance of this information and how will it impact my decision making" for each piece of information gathered. If it will not impact decision making in any way then collecting the information has no current benefit. It should either be disgarded, or perhaps better, stored in case it is needed for a future decision. However time should not be wasted collecting more of the same unless there is an indication that the information will become important in the future.

However it is also important to realise that the intelligence needs of senior management are very different from those of the sales force or purchasing departments, for example. Purchasing does not want to know all about future plans (unlike senior management who do). They will want to know whether they are obtaining supplies at the best rate and quality - and benchmarking how your company compares to its competitors. So, you need to look at the supply chain and find out who supplies what to competitors at what price. Anything else is likely to be a waste of effort as it is not or is less relevant, and so ceases to be cost-effective to research. Similarly, the sales force will want comparisons between your and your competitor products and services. How do they sell? How do they attract customers? How do they locate customers? What do they offer and how? The sales force is not particularly interested in a financial assessment of the competitor strengths, weaknesses and financial capabilities.

So by identifying who will use the analysis and what are their requirements you can focus on what aspects to look at and how. However just because one item of information has no benefit to one group - it fails the "So What" test - does not mean that it will have no benefit for any other group. Each needs to apply the test, or better, the competitor analyst needs to have an overview of all user requirements for CI. This can come from identifying each users key intelligence topics or KITs (see question 2 on competitor profiles for more information on KITs - or alternatively our brief guide to competitive intelligence).