Too many companies don’t know what their competitors are doing or planning, especially in terms of their sales activities and strategic direction. Without proper analysis, they simply react to whatever the competition does. It is impossible to be effective in sales and marketing or to deploy a successful long-range strategy without using competitive analysis to know how other vendors’ activities impact your business.

Analysis of competitive situations gives you a detailed assessment of your key competitors, providing you a better understanding of who they are and what they are doing and planning. It reveals their strengths and weaknesses and their position relative to your organization in the marketplace, allowing you to leverage that knowledge to improve your sales, your marketing strategies, and your critical business decision processes.

In order to maintain maximum competitive advantage, you need to evaluate and understand:

• Your competitors’ reputation for customer service and support
• Your competitors’ sales and marketing plans
• The loyalty of your competitors’ customers
• How a customer rates your competitor after their solution is in place
• How well your competitors meet implementation schedules
• Which accounts your competitor uses as references

By implementing a Primary Intelligence Competitive Analysis, you can expect to:

• Identify real-time trends in your marketplace
• Be proactive instead of reactive
• Identify your organization’s competitive advantages
• Identify risk factors and problem areas with your primary competition
• Identify “poor reference” accounts for each competitor
• Identify your competitors’ sales and marketing strategies
• Measure your competitors’ customer loyalty