What’s Your Company’s Competitive Intelligence?

It's important to realize that, as an integrator, your company doesn't operate in a vacuum.

The marketplace is a tightly woven web of relationships between integrators, retailers, builders, trades, and so on, not to mention existing and prospective clients.

It's important to keep your ear to the ground and know what's going on around you.

We all keep tabs on the marketplace to a greater or lesser extent. In casual terms, we call it "gossip." On a more serious level, it's referred to as "competitive intelligence."

Really large companies in some industries take their collection of competitive intelligence seriously, either with an in-house department, or more commonly, contracting freelancers.

I've spoken at length to freelance corporate intelligence professionals in the past and attended meetings of SCIP, the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals.

What they'll tell you is that the job doesn't involve nearly as much skulduggery as you might imagine. In fact, "espionage" is a dirty word and something to be avoided.

Really, they engage in much of the same fact-finding and, yes, even gossip that we all do, they just get paid to do it full time.

We all know that a challenging marketplace makes it essential that you stay sharp in every aspect of your business, and that applies equally to keep tabs on the competitive situation in your marketplace.

I'm not suggesting that integrators necessarily need to hire a freelance intelligence pro or assign the duty to one of their people. However, it doesn't hurt to fine tune your antennas, in order to effectively recognize those Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Certainly, a little digging can often pay off. In the past year, one dealer I know heard rumblings that a local builder was on the fence about their existing relationship with a rival integrator.

Acting on this information, he did some digging, checked some facts, and decided to approach the builder and offer his services. The result? Another high-end builder on his client list.

Granted, this goes on all the time, everywhere, in the CE custom channel. However, as a CE pro, everything you do should have a process, from design to install to programming to project management, etc.

With that in mind, the collection and analysis of marketplace info (call it "intel" if you want to feel all Tom Clancy-like) should follow a process, just like you handle everything else in your world. There are three general steps to follow:

Collect

Virtually everything you need to keep tabs on the marketplace is already on your desk. The custom channel is a small community, and your local market even more so.

Your existing network of business contacts is how most things will come to your attention. At the same time, it's important to remain open and continuously expand your business contacts, not only for the obvious reasons, but to stay better informed.

This is something where the naturally gregarious people have an advantage. Regularly touching base with a large professional network is a lot like net fishing in the ocean: you cast your net out over and over again, and you see if there's anything in there that you wanted to catch.

It's important to keep an open mind when you hear things. Not everything is going to come gift wrapped as something you clearly need to act on. It's good to be able to read between the lines, and determine if a hint or a rumor requires further study.

Some things may be little more than a trickle of info, which you're going to need to ferret out on your own from other sources. Which brings us to our next point.

Corroborate

Not only is your business network often the primary way you learn about developments in your market, it's also how you can corroborate; "trust, but verify" as the saying goes.

Chances are, when you hear something from someone in the custom channel, there's at least one other person in your network who either knows it or knows something related to it.

Think of it as putting together a puzzle, where you may have to collect the pieces from more than one source. Once you've got a reasonably complete picture, you can move to the next step.

Evaluate/Act

Once you're aware of something, whether it's an opportunity or a threat, you need to decide what you're going to do about it.

Is it a lead you need to approach? Is it a new competitor you need to secret shop? Maybe it's a proposed state or city law that impacts your business.

At this point, you likely have a clear idea of what your next step is.

Whatever the case, knowledge is half the battle. Prior to that, of course, is taking the steps to acquire and evaluate that knowledge.

Stay tuned in, check your sources, and keep your thumb on the pulse of the competitive intelligence in your marketplace. In time, it will be as routine and under control as your other business functions.

Lee Distad is a freelance CEDIA Certified Professional Designer who offers design and process consultation to firms in the Custom Installation industry, as well as copy writing and other professional writing services. Lee’s business and industry blog can be read at http://www.leedistad.com