Establishing a competitor's capabilities
The Brief
Our client was a distribution company and owner of retail goods warehouses. Knowing there was a demand for more warehouse space in one part of the UK, our client, wondered how much of this business they could hope to obtain. They knew that the area currently had one warehouse used by manufacturers to deposit and store goods for local retailers. In order estimate their competitor's current handling capacity, our client wanted to find out the number of loading bays the competitor used.
The Result
Our client was able to determine that demand far exceeded the capacity capability of the competitor. On discovering the extent of the shortfall, our client realised that they could expand their own warehousing space and profit from this extra business.
How we obtained the information
Even the most junior workers have knowledge that can be useful to a competitor, often without knowing its importance. We chose to speak to the competitor's warehouse security guard at 11:30pm on a Sunday evening when they were likely to be bored. We asked: "When does the warehouse open for deliveries?" We were given an answer - and were not asked who we were or why we wanted to know. We followed with - "Is it better to get there first thing to beat any queue, or are there enough loading bays to cope with demand". We then followed up with "How many are there?" By now, the security person was feeling chatty, so we continued with other questions such as - "Out of curiosity, who else delivers to the warehouse" and so on... In that one phone-call we discovered a lot more than just the number of loading bays!
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