More than ever before businesses are pressing software applications into service to automate the process of keeping a tab in real time on what the competitor is doing. Competitive intelligence tools today cover a wide spectrum of competitor activities such as new brand introductions and super dynamic price changes. Input the competitor URL into the search bar of some of these tools and wow! The tool will alert you to visual and content updates on the competitor site. These platforms have evolved lightning fast and now cover an entire swathe of competitor activities – from how rival businesses are developing customer bases for products and the needs, desires, and intentions of their diverse customer segments. To improve their own visibility on search engines, businesses are falling over themselves when it comes to monitoring the keywords their rivals are targeting.
The question is, have employee skills in competitive intelligence really kept pace with the breakneck evolution of competitive intelligence tools? Training in the competitive intelligence can help drive productivity while keeping the margin of error down to a bare minimum in competitor tracking. Yes, training is essential to keep competitive intelligence teams at level with their peers in industry and future-proof the organization. Sure, enough companies ought to be spending more in this area.
Competitive intelligence: Who’s getting trained?
Typically, in most businesses, top-notch professionals (e.g., strategic planners), mid-tier marketing and product managers, as well as advanced level competitive intelligence professionals are singled out for competitive intelligence training. The onus of delivering these customized training programs is on product marketers in many enterprises, a responsibility they carry along with their regular duties. Now there is a growing demand that competitive intelligence market training be mainstreamed within enterprises, so the benefits stand to accrue to a broader section of employees, and this could significantly boost productivity. Apart from in-house training, a growing number of external academies offer competitive intelligence market training, including distance learning opportunities.
What is the course content?
Competitive intelligence curricula might vary, but identifying, understanding, and using visual aids to organize critical data on competitors (e.g., revenue, growth rate) should be an invariable feature of any syllabus. Evaluating the factors and buyer motivations behind deal outcomes (deals won, opportunities missed) is another important topic of study. Learners also master ways to gather competitor news and developments by drill and practice. Besides, they also become proficient in framing business strategies using competitor insights as building blocks. Competitive intelligence courses also aim to upskill the workforce in clear, concise, and consistent communication, problem solving, analytical skills, and project management. The delivery mode of these programs takes the form of training workshops (remote and onsite), webinars, and presentations.
How relevant is competitive intelligence training?
It is crucial to check out from time to time whether the training programs are meeting the needs of the organization such as improved productivity and upskilled employees. Is it enabling the organization to more effectively gather and make sense of competitive insights in a timely manner? If not, it’s time to rethink them. Besides, our research turned up nearly two score competitive intelligence tools, featuring competitive analysis, and competitive price tracking. Other features include benchmarking, keyword tracking, social media monitoring, trend analysis, and website monitoring. So, it is crucial that employees are trained in competitive tools that fit the organization’s business expectations like a glove.
How can Infiniti Research help you?
Face up to market threats even before they can turn into threats! Stay on top of market trends and capitalize opportunities before your archrivals can. Deep, accurate, and timely competitive insights hold the key to outmaneuvering the competition in today’s maze-like business milieu. With growing competition, changing market dynamics, and highly competitive pricing strategies, winning market share and maintaining leadership is no longer as easy as it used to be even for MNCs and large enterprises. At Infiniti Research, our experts boast considerable person-years of competitive intelligence market training and expertise. So much so that they are able to uniquely blend primary and secondary research methodologies to carefully glean and make sense of competitive data. The end game is to support our clients’ diverse long-term growth plans.
With expertise spanning multiple areas – company profiling, competitive benchmarking, competitor pricing, and more, our competitive intelligence market practitioners help businesses stay in step with competitors and develop a comprehensive understanding of where they stand in the market. We provide businesses “integrated insight,” combining internal and external knowledge sources (e.g., press releases, product launches, and media citations) to energize their decision-making with more accurate competitive insights, so they can win more market share and mindshare.
Summary of the case study
The complex and fluid regulatory requirements around medical devices in North America have implications for device manufacturing costs. The fragmented buyer landscape is not easy for medical device makers like our client to address either. Moreover, blind spots on the competitive intelligence front were making it difficult for the client to anticipate competitors’ activities and tap into emerging market opportunities. By adding extra zing to their processes, our competitive intelligence market expertise enabled the medical devices manufacturer to navigate challenges and push into uncharted markets, and payoffs are very encouraging so far.
Amid market jitters, competitive intelligence is a medical device manufacturer’s lucky charm
Surge in chronic and geriatric diseases, declining fertility rates, and increasing life expectancy are key factors driving the demand for specialty medical care. In turn, this scenario is providing continued growth momentum for the medical devices market, given their crucial role in specialized medical care. The emerging market for instruments, apparatus, implants, and machines outside of North America has certainly piqued the interest of device manufacturers. However, medical device makers, our client and subject matter of this case included, face some difficult scenarios.
The complex and fluid regulatory requirements is one, and this has implications for device manufacturing costs. The fragmented buyer landscape is not easy to address either. Moreover, on the competitive intelligence front, there are blind spots that make it difficult for the client to anticipate competitors’ activities and tap into emerging market opportunities. As a result, the client faced potential revenue losses, and to preempt this, the medical device manufacturer kicked off an engagement with our competitive intelligence market practice line. The objective was to acquire a baseline understanding of the competitive landscape, get a grasp of where the market is going, and pin down unmet needs. Identifying opportunities for product differentiation was also part of the agenda.
Our experts helped the client figure out their competitors’ investment in R&D and technology upgrades. Besides, we were able to get a measure of the technologies and processes leveraged by competitors in critical areas, like security and operational risks, for the client’s benefit. On top of this, we identified top contract manufacturers of medical devices in emerging markets capable of meeting the client’s immediate requirement. This has since reduced operating costs noticeably, and that’s a bargain!
That’s not the only sweet spot in this engagement. The business is able to make more informed investment and commercial decisions in a fastmoving market. By adding extra zing to their processes, our expertise in the competitive intelligence market enabled the medical devices manufacturer to navigate challenges and push into uncharted markets, and payoffs are very encouraging so far.
