Competitive Rankings and Analysis

Every company should know how they compare to their competitors. After all, these are the people who are trying to take away the business you currently enjoy in the marketplace, and this is exactly what they will do if you misstep or lose your direction. Let us be clear that this is not advocating industrial espionage, which, by definition, is at least unethical if not illegal. Business intelligence, on the other hand, comes from many open sources of information which are not difficult to find if you know where to look. For example, a great deal of useful competitive information is available from the competitors themselves, in the form of their product brochures, annual reports, press releases, scientific papers, trade show exhibits, and websites. 

The latter, in particular, frequently offers more information about companies products, markets, plants locations and sizes, and personnel than any other single source. Sometimes, news releases and trade publication articles about your competitors will disclose production capacity and other information that is not otherwise easily found in open literature. 

Competitors customers and vendors are sometimes willing to share information, and these are often very reliable sources when it comes to estimating market share. However, it is usually more difficult to analyze and interpret this information than it is to obtain it. For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you use an experienced independent consultant to do competitive analyses, if they are to be anything more than financial comparisons (and they should be). Someone from outside your company often will be able to provide a more unbiased, broader view than your in-house persoimel, when analyzing and interpreting the data. 

your consultant will want your agreement on the structure of the study. You should want to know your competitors identities, their size, growth trends, organization, product lines, major markets (and share in each of them), market share (both overall and by individual markets), innovation record, production capacity, and technical capabilities. Some of the information you want may simply be unavailable, such as production costs. Talking to people who are knowledgeable in the industry is more time-consuming 

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