Curated Intelligence(TM): An Almost Unfair Advantage.
The Vice President at my client was agitated. A new competitor had been positioning itself as the market leader in signing contracts with the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute with noticeable press coverage and a well-delivered marketing message.
“I want to know if they really are competition for government business”. The VP wanted to understand if his company could effectively compete and win market share. We were able to answer his question fully.
With a combination of proprietary database research, skilled, confidential phone interviews, as well as mining a government database containing all contracts submitted by any entity to the U.S. government, we were able to determine:
- how the competitor built their sales organization (organic vs. hired from the outside)
- their strategy for winning government business
- the size of contracts signed
- what agencies they were doing work with
- where they saw future growth
Most importantly, we were able to discern truth from hearsay.
With this knowledge, we informed the client that there is significant room for competition in the government market, highlighted agencies that have a need for their services – and advised them on best practices for building out a dedicated sales force.
Over the past 30 years, I’ve noticed that many organizations, be it out of fear, ignorance, or even arrogance, claim knowledge of its competitors and make critical decisions with little to no objective intelligence.
Our new approach to gathering intelligence has: Curated Intelligence™.
Here are some of the questions that you should be asking of your organization, to determine if you need Curated Intelligence:
- Are there any indicators that your competitors may be developing new or different R&D, marketing and sales strategies?
- Are they growing their market presence in non-US geographies?
- Are they announcing new product and service offerings within the next 12 months?
- Have there been changes in corporate leadership translating into new strategy?
- Is the company considering any acquisitions, or being acquired themselves?
If the answer is ‘yes’ to all or most of these questions, you really need to be sure you have active intelligence on the competition and what they are up to.
Through carefully identified resources, conversations, and market knowledge, we answer the questions that have not been answered. And we do so with objectivity and without bias.
