|
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: Questions
Quick Tip
A key competitive intelligence skill is the ability to distinguish what you do know from what you don't know. The effort is then to find out sources for the unknown information - as the great English writer, Dr Samuel Johnson said:
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Unfortunately even with the knowledge there can be problems. Lewis Branscomb - the US physicist and Harvard management professor once said:
People rarely distinguish among data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. But they are as different from each other and as interlocking as starch molecules, flour, bread, and the flavorful memory of a superb morning croissant.
The aim of competitive & marketing intelligence is to turn data into something that can lead to competitive advantage in the same way that your morning croissant or loaf of bread depends on flour and water interacting to make something that is more than just a mixture of the raw ingredients.
|
|
Books - Strategic and Competitive Analysis
Recommended Book
Strategic and Competitive Analysis: Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business -
Craig S. Fleisher & Babette Bensoussan
Buy UK £ or US$
For more recommendations visit our book selection.
|
|
Public training
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!
Public Training Workshops -
ProfitNet Training Course on Competitor/Competitive Intellgence
Tuesday 15 September / Wed 30 September
University of Brighton - Postgraduate Computer Suite, Watts Building.
Cost: £550 + VAT
A two-day workshop split into two halves (with practical work to be competed during the two-week gap) focusing on ways to use competitive intelligence to best effect within organisational strategy.
Learn how to discover valuable information about your competitors and use this to gain competitve advantage over them in today's changeable markets.
This is one of a series of workshops aimed at helping businesses combat the economic downturn and prepare them for future success under the auspices of the Collaborative Training Centre attached to the University of Brighton.
More information & online booking / Brochure (PDF)
|
|
SubscribeNews
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
|
|
Footer
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.
 About Us Services Resources Publications Help Contact us Site Map
Copyrights, etc.
Copyright © AWARE 1995-2009
Last page / site update: Thursday, June 11, 2009
|
 |
|
