Do you need us, our services and products?

By answering the following questions with a simple “yes” or “no”, we believe your decision can be made with clarity:

1. We have a formal intelligence gathering and analysis process

2. We have a good understanding of our competition’s offerings and how they bring them to market.

3. We know how well our competitors are doing financially, their business model, revenue sources, and cost structure.

4. We have a good understanding of the capabilities of the competitors – what they can and cannot do.

5. We know the goals of our competitors and which markets are most important to them.

6. We know the strategy and plans of our competitors.

7. We know the mindset of the CEO’s and key executives of our top competitors – how they view the industry, the degree of risk they are willing to take, the priority of their business goals and their individual ambitions.

8. We know how our top competitors will respond in key situations, based on knowing their mindset and how they’re reacted in the past.

9. We regularly war-game our strategies vs. our competition; role-playing different scenarios that may occur so we can adjust our strategy and tactics.

10. Competitive intelligence and analysis significantly influences the direction of out strategy and plans.

Scoreboard:

Give yourself one point for yes and zero for no.

• If you score 0-3 you are operating without “eyes and ears”. You have little other than surface knowledge of what your competition is doing and what little you do have is not actionable. You may be in for a surprise from you competitor.

• If you score 4 -7 you are probably ahead of most of your competitors. According to one survey, about 40% of large and mid-size companies still have no formal intelligence gathering process. However, there is still much room for improvement, for although you have actionable intelligence, you probably have not yet used it to develop effective competitive strategies.

• If you answered “yes” to 8-10 questions you are practicing leading-edge CI. Congratulations.

Recognising our source: Sun Tzu Newsletter 2Q, 2003, Mc Neilly, M, www.suntzu1.com