First of all, it is necessary to clearly outline the business management mode of each tracked object, and on this basis, effectively classify and manage its dynamic information.
Secondly, information collection should include both typical "hard information" and "soft information". These "soft information" are as important as "hard information" in horizontal competition, although the amount of "soft information" may be much less than "hard information".
Third, it is necessary to collect relevant information about corporate behavior and market performance. Every company has its own operating characteristics, which affect the policy formation of enterprises in a very subtle way (from our researcher's point of view, these operating characteristics are sometimes beneficial to enterprises and sometimes unfavorable to enterprises, so we can't generalize).
Fourthly, in most work, information expression and data analysis need to be considered when collecting information. If we can't analyze it, a database full of information is useless: the original information itself has no value, and only the ability to process it will produce value.
Fifth, competitors have many sources of information. Commonly used information channels are: government statistics, banks, investment banks, patent agencies, terminal vendors, suppliers, customers, public relations agencies, advertising companies, seminars, industry experts, professional associations/societies, securities companies, industry regulatory agencies/management agencies/law enforcement agencies, professional investigation companies/institutions, enterprise annual reports and enterprises themselves. It should be pointed out that industry analysis articles and industry annual reports should be used with caution; As for corporate public relations articles published in business magazines, newspapers and other media, they are often exaggerated, with the aim of enhancing the image of enterprises in the eyes of the corporate public. In addition, for relatively immature industries, the reliability of statistical data is poor. Therefore, we should carefully examine the sources of information and find out the facts from them.
Sixth, on the basis of a large number of possession and comprehensive analysis of desk materials, investigation institutions can better understand the purpose, connotation and extension of customer surveys and create good conditions for field surveys.