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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: Shouting loudly

Quick Tip

The Talmud (the main source for Jewish law and tradition other than the Bible) tells a parable about a gathering of all the animals in nature. The lion was asked why he was the king of all the beasts. He replied:
Because I can roar the loudest, and when I roar, everyone else is silent.
At that point, the thrush stood up and said:
That may be true, but if we go a mile or so from where you are roaring, your roar is not heard. However when I begin to chirp, all the birds chirp along with me and the whole forest is filled with song.

Making an impact and influencing others does not depend on how loud you shout to put over your own views.
It depends on influencing people so that everybody sings from the same song-sheet.
Silence does not necessarily signify approval.
It may just indicate that people are scared to argue with you.

When everybody joins in and contributes, then you can be sure that you will reach agreement!

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$

Read our review of this book

This book provides an excellent review of the most common techniques of competitive and strategic analysis - giving instructions on how to use each technique, when to use it, and each technique's pros and cons.

The book should be on every strategic planner and competitor analyst's "must have" list and is essential reading for business studies and MBA students. The book covers all the main analysis techniques:

the Boston Box
financial analysis,
Porter Analysis,
Value Chain Analysis,
Blindspot analysis,
SWOT analysis,
PEST analysis

and many more.

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!

Finding Competitive Intelligence using Online Sources

AWARE consultants are experts at discovering competitor information online and have developed a market-leading course on Finding Competitive Intelligence using Online Sources. This course has been given as an in-house course to numerous companies across industries (IT, publishing, telecoms, chemicals....) and countries, as well as publicly at SCIP annual and European conferences, the London International Online Information Conferences and other similar events.

The workshop has received high praise for its unique approach to finding competitive intelligence on the Internet. The workshop - available as a half-day or full day in-house training course - teaches attendees how to find actionable competitive intelligence rather than just present a list of sources that quickly date. Like all AWARE's in-house training, the course can be customised to focus on industry or competitive area.

For more information on this workshop and how it can help you become a more effective Internet researcher check out our Competitive Intelligence Training and ask us about our courses on finding CI information.

AWARE's Newsletter

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

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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)

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Last page / site update: Wednesday, June 9, 2010