Header

What is Competitive Intelligence - a brief guide

Strategy, Training, Research Services for Competitive & Marketing Intelligence

AWARE: UK competitive intelligence consultants offering competitor analysis and research services, competitive intelligence training & workshops and CI and marketing strategy consultancy.

About Us > Help & Support > Tips for better practice

AWARE Help & Support
Tips & Ideas for Better Practice

AWARE aims to help organizations become the best in their sector. As part of our mission, we offer a number of tips and ideas that should help your competitive and marketing intelligence processes. Some will be directly relevant - while some are aimed to provoke thought and comment.

Our goal is to help you think outside the box - to be creative. It is only through being creative that you will be able to differentiate yourself from your competitors in the long-term - and thereby achieve long-term competitive advantage.

The tips and ideas on these pages are different from those we include on our Frequently asked questions on CI pages. Some are based on items published in AWARE's newsletter. They include business models, concepts and thoughts that you can use when looking at your own organization and processes.

Let us have feedback on what you like, what worked, what didn't (and why). Also, let us know if you have any tips that you'd like us to publish on these pages. We'll include full attribution, and contact details for any tips or ideas published.

This month's Tips

What is a competitor?

This tip looks at a number of definitions of "competitor" and how choosing the wrong definition can impact approaches to competitive strategy and understanding. (More)

Avoid Price Wars

This tip examines the impact of a price war on company profitability, and suggests a few ways to avoid such battles. (More)

Stengths, Benefits & Features

Understanding the difference is essential for effective marketing strategies. This tip defines strengths, benefits and features and gives an example of the differences (More)

Information Categories

There are 4 types of information available to companies:

what we know we know;
what we know we don't know;
what we don't know we know;
what we don't know we don't know.

This tip examines each of these categories, and their implications for CI! (More)

Evaluating Risk

What is your viewpoint? Are you one of those who avoids risk-taking and prefers safety, or do you relish new opportunities? This tip looks at why in today's world, risk-taking in business has become a necessity for survival. (More)

Quick Tip: Use multiple search engines

Quick Tip

When doing an Internet search don't just use one search engine. Look at using a selection - Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask and even a few others. The reason is that each search engine uses different rules for ranking the order of pages - what they see as the most relevant pages.

By restricting your searches to just one engine you're also limiting the results you find to that search engines view of what is important. Your view may differ - and by using a range of search engines you will not only potentially find more relevant sites but you are also given a choice of different ranking methods.

Bonus Tip

Don't just use the standard search form but instead use the advanced search facilities. These allow for much more complex searches that are more likely to result in you finding what you need quickly.

Books - Smart Services

Recommended Book

Smart Services: Competitive Information Strategies, Solutions and Success Stories for Service Businesses
Deborah C Sawyer
Buy UK £ or US$

Read our review of this book

The front cover of "Smart Services" includes a quote from Andrew Garvin, the CEO of Find/SVP saying: "Finally a book that nails down what every service business needs to know about competition and competitive intelligence. 'Smart Services' offers competitive information strategies that firms can put to immediate use." I don't think that I could have given a better summary and description of this excellent book.

For a thorough review of this book check out FreePint's book review. (FreePint is an excellent portal site and discussion forum for the overall information industry, and is well recommended - and used by over 70,000 information professionals world-wide).

For more recommendations visit our book selection.

Competitive Intelligence Training

Do you need to
know more about
Competitive Intelligence?

We offer in-house Competitive Intelligence Training, customised to your requirements.
Find out about our training services today!

AWARE's Newsletter

Subscribe to AWARE's newsletter giving news on AWARE, and advice and tips on competitive intelligence and marketing topics.

Click Here to Subscribe

Our services in competitive intelligence research, competitor analysis and CI training will help you integrate and use competitive and marketing intelligence in your business, strategic and marketing planning processes. Whether you need research, advice or training, our mission is to support our clients so that they achieve their growth objectives.

For the best UK & European competitive intelligence and competitor analysis services, contact us today.

AWARE Phone numbers: 0845 430 9125 (International: +44 20 8954 9121). Fax: 0845 430 9126 (International: +44 20 8954 2102)

About Us Services Resources Publications Help Contact us Site Map

Copyright © AWARE 1995-2009
VAT Reg No. 662 3151 56

Last page / site update: Tuesday, November 3, 2009