Competitive Intelligence Smarts

When you exhibit at trade shows you want to know how to stand out from your competition and secondly there is no better place to collect competitive intelligence than at a trade show! In this lesson we will focus on both of these areas. Good news is, you won’t have learn secret codes or other tools of the spy trade.Why Track Competitors? Besides needing to differentiate yourself at the shows you exhibit at, tracking competitors is an important analysis tool to help define what your competitors are up to and "where they are headed". This information helps steer many aspects of your business:

• Trade show exhibiting
• Advertising
• Management planning
• Marketing
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Restructuring
• Pricing
• R&D (research and development)

Types of Competitors

When you are defining who your competitors are, you shouldn't just look at the companies offering similar products to what you offer. There are 3 types of competitors to look for; direct competitors, indirect competitors and future competitors. Direct competitors are the most obvious; these are businesses offering the same type of product/service as your business does. Indirect competitors are businesses that offer an alternative solution to your key prospect's problem, sometimes it's a little harder to think about what alternative solutions may be, but here's an example that may help you understand this better. For example airlines are not just competing with other airlines, they compete with chartered flights, high speed trains, bus services and arguably even video conferencing. Future competitors are businesses that are expected to start "invading your market space" sometime down the road.

Finding Your Competitors

To know who and what to research, you need to determine who your top competitors are in those 3 categories. There quite a few places to help with your search for competitors. Below is a list of a few examples to help you get started with your search. Full Article.