The characteristics of product sample documents are embodied in three aspects:
First of all, it is reliable.
Second, the product and technical data of the product samples are relatively complete.
Third, timeliness and relative novelty.
Through the preparation of product samples, we can also understand the situation of product manufacturers, the advantages and disadvantages of this product relative to similar products, and thus infer the technical strength, product development ability and level, and sales situation of this enterprise, especially industry newspapers, economic information newspapers, and local newspapers, which are important windows to understand the industry competition.
Publish the brief introduction of stock trading of listed companies, annual reports of listed companies, ranking of scale/strength of industrial enterprises (ranking of "top 50" or "top 100" in sales or operating income) and list of competitive products ("brand-name products" with high market share arranged by category); Experts' analysis of the competitive situation of a certain industry or product, such as the reports of price wars and commercial wars, is a hot spot in many newspapers. Through the analysis of articles in such columns as "comments", "phenomenon perspective", "hot spot tracking" and "interviews", we can learn the characteristics of many extremely useful competitive intelligence patent documents: first, they are detailed; Second, the content is extensive; Third, the patent specification is not only a technical document, but also a legal document.
Play several important roles in transmitting competitive information:
First of all, patent literature is an important information source for new product development;
Secondly, patent literature is an important means of market competition;
Third, monitor the patent application activities of competitors. The purpose is to prevent the opponent from applying for a patent successfully, or to apply for a similar patent before the opponent;
Fourth, the protection of patent rights;
Fifthly, patent information serves as an "early warning" system. The database can provide more search items, and intelligence personnel can use any meaningful words reflecting the characteristics of competitors as search items; Combining multiple fields can retrieve a series of companies that meet specific needs;
The database is updated quickly. Online data has reached the level of updating once an hour, with a large amount of updates.
The database has large storage capacity and high retrieval efficiency. An experienced intelligence officer searches the online database for four hours at a time, which is equivalent to finding the surrounding information in the library. 1994 the department of library and information science of Indiana university investigated the application status of internet in enterprise competitive intelligence, and found that enterprises are using the following internet functions: ① traditional competitive intelligence activities; ② Marketing, customer contact and customer development; ③ Save time; (4) the transaction of informal technical secrets; ⑤ Information provision; ⑥ Get free software. The first item mainly includes obtaining all kinds of information quickly, conveniently and cheaply through the network, especially the release of new products of peers, any comments of users on our company and competitors' products, and recording the achievements of external enterprises from the network as their own internal development goals (so-called "benchmarking" information).
Get information from online discussions
You can enter various discussion groups from e-mail, news service and some inquiry tools, so as to get some valuable information. E-forums on the Internet are generally thematic discussions. Quite a few electronic forums are owned by companies, and their themes revolve around their products and services. Using it, we can discuss the products and services in the industry, understand the reaction of suppliers, sellers and consumers to the products, get the evaluation of competitors' products, and understand the people involved in the discussion. We can also use online tools to obtain author information, establish a database, and keep in touch for a long time when necessary to track and obtain useful information. A lot of competitive intelligence-perhaps as much as 80% of the required information-comes from this enterprise. Many employees in this enterprise have mastered this information through various channels intentionally or unintentionally, and have the knowledge and ability to analyze information. Their professional knowledge, practical experience, business and social relations are valuable sources of information.
In an organizational structure, the farther two people are in the horizontal or vertical direction, the less likely they are to successfully transmit information. The possibility of communication between dispatchers and managers is extremely small, and the possibility of realizing the importance of information and actively transmitting it is almost zero. The possibility of information exchange between two executives with clear division of labor, such as marketing manager and personnel manager, is also very small.
It is ideal to have such a system:
Everything that everyone knows is flowing in the company-there is no need to increase the company's expenses. You can ask any question to this system and get an answer. The key point of this system is not the collection of information, but the retention and dissemination of information, which is the crux of the enterprise information problem-key information is neither considered important nor conveyed to the people who make decisions according to it.
If we have to choose between information collection with triple efficiency and internal information transmission with double efficiency, we should be happy to choose the latter. The efficiency of internal information activities, increasing retention and transmission will make its efficiency increase geometrically. The increase of external acquisition can only improve efficiency arithmetically. -"High Profit Intelligence of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises" Individual information has its value, but its value can only be reflected if it is related to the context. Some information itself is worthless, only when it is placed in the context of other information, or when it is mastered by people who know the situation and have the right to act.
When a piece of information is owned by five people, five bases can provide information, and five different pieces of information can only produce one base in the hands of one person. The value of information lies in its connection with other information.
Every enterprise is naturally accumulating information. The value of this information is rarely recognized, because its full value can only be reflected in a large number of other information. The more foundations of information dissemination, the greater the value of information. If information is collected by a person who does not fully understand its value, the life of information is over. If information cannot be fully disseminated to others, its value cannot be maximized. Therefore, most enterprises go outside to look for information. One way to solve this problem is to encourage every employee to consider the value of the information they know, and then consciously pass it on to those who they think may need or be interested. Creating an atmosphere that encourages the identification and dissemination of useful information is the first step to success. Of course, this process should be carried out under control. From the beginning, we should identify those people in the company who may collect information in their daily work and encourage them to consider the information they find more seriously.
Information sources within the company
Companies, big or small, have available information sources. Large companies have a large number of trained experts in the market all day. These experts include scientists, salespeople, purchasing managers, etc. Most of them have information about competitors. Companies often have information that intelligence personnel need, in someone's filing cabinet, desk drawer and computer. Relevant personnel have been collecting this information for a long time in order to complete their work, but only a few people use it. Sources of employee information (listed according to competitors, technology, market and other professional knowledge involved; Information and files of various departments and descriptions of their contents;
Computer database materials that are not connected to the Internet;
Whether the information scattered in people's drawers, filing cabinets and minds can be collected continuously and systematically and collected in decision-making departments depends on whether a set of information exchange mechanism can be established. The so-called communication mechanism is a system in which employees voluntarily and continuously provide information, including an incentive system to encourage the provision of information, an information feedback system, necessary communication facilities and specific implementation measures.
For example, design a special consultation form, a list of regular telephone interviews, a list of "who knows who" and an information matrix. These methods, called network technology, are the basic ways to collect competitive intelligence within enterprises.
Other ways to collect information inside the company.
Establish an internal expert database: collect experts' professional knowledge, language skills, background and projects they are engaged in;
Special exhibitions of competitors' products;
Lunch place is the best place for people to exchange information;
Bulletin board. : Posting news of competitors' products in places where people come and go;
Set aside some places in the company's various briefings and magazines to publish the news of competitors and ask others to provide relevant information;
Meeting. Let participants in relevant meetings provide information and discuss;
Speech. Instill information consciousness;
Information reporting system (e.g. travel reimbursement);
Business travelers collect physical and verbal information.
Collect and save all trade exhibition documents, including competitors' product price lists, pictures, brochures, factory publications, samples and samples.
Improve information awareness and provide incentive mechanisms (information feedback, thank-you letters, praise, awards, regulations, etc.). ) is an important guarantee for the normal operation of the internal information system. No enterprise operates in a vacuum, and it has to deal with many organizations and individuals. The third party refers to the general name of individuals and institutions in contact with enterprises and competitors, including users, lawyers, brokers, certified public accountants, stock reviewers, market research institutions, banks, advertising companies, consulting institutions, dealers, suppliers, industry authorities, industry associations, propaganda media, consumer organizations, quality inspection departments, storage and transportation departments, etc.
According to the survey of some small and medium-sized enterprise managers, most of the important information comes from interpersonal relationships such as conversation, inquiry and interview. Asking is the most direct way. Targets include customers, suppliers, current and former employees of competitors, and even competitors. Call or ask for its sales promotional materials; Put your name on the mailing list so that you can get sales brochures and direct mail regularly to monitor your competitors;
Hire management consultants and design consultants;
Use job fairs to ask former employees of competitors or job-seeking college students who have worked for competitors;
Participate in academic exchanges. Sending engineers to attend academic meetings of competitors can hear the implication from the conversation and analyze new product development and overall strategic positioning.
When there are no conditions to build a competitive intelligence system by ourselves and there are no competent professional companies in the society, we can make comprehensive use of relevant information, scientific research and teaching institutions, give full play to their respective strengths, and undertake the task of collecting competitive intelligence. The task of enterprises is to find the strengths of these institutions, do a good job of coordination and complete the "mosaic" puzzle of information.
As a third party, each institution has its own advantages and disadvantages when providing the required information.
Problems needing attention in understanding information through the third party
Be careful when you get to know your competitors through third parties. As users, many competitors have signed agreements with third parties not to disclose trade secrets, and should try to avoid infringement when collecting information. Some industries have developed professional ethics, such as certified public accountants, lawyers and market investigators. Do not disclose the business or technical information of customers without authorization, and do not violate the confidentiality agreement signed with customers in advance. And they generally abide by professional ethics. Therefore, it is necessary to know the relevant regulations in advance, distinguish different objects, take different measures, pay attention to information research skills, and obtain information within the scope permitted by law.
To obtain the required information from the third party, we should solve the following problems:
Find out who it is. What methods are used (consulting materials, personal interviews, telephone interviews, mailing questionnaires)? What questions should I ask? How to tell which information is conclusive and which is hearsay? It is best to determine the individuals or units that can be visited first. They should have a lot of information or can provide useful clues. Various economic conferences have become one of the main sources for enterprises to collect market information. Such as technical exchange meeting, product appraisal meeting, symposium, exhibition fair, technical fair, tender meeting, information conference, trade fair, science and technology fair, various trade fairs, etc.
In addition to papers, product manuals and product catalogues, there are text and picture introductions of various booths, technical or market information manuals with high reference value, a large number of documents produced in technical bidding, consulting services and talent exchange activities, and more non-text information such as negotiation, experience exchange, audio and video recording. This product-intensive, business-intensive and peer-intensive occasion is the best opportunity to obtain technical information, market information and talent information. Competitive environment refers to the external factors of market competition considered from the overall and objective perspective. It corresponds to the internal factors of market competition and constitutes the market competition structure of enterprises.
These external factors include: politics, economy, science, technology, military, law, social culture, market distribution and composition, consumers, competitors, suppliers and middlemen. This is an enterprise-centered division method. According to this method, the structure of competitive environment is divided into external competitive environment and internal competitive environment. The internal environment information of an enterprise consists of internal resource information and internal capability information elements: internal resource information, including manpower, finance, equipment, material data market, etc. , including both tangible resources and intangible resources. Internal capability information, including enterprise planning, organization, management, personnel, culture, etc.