Business (competitive) intelligence. Encyclopedia of Marketing What Competitive Intelligence Needs to Know

Competitive intelligence is a marketing tool for studying the competitive environment, which is a targeted collection of information about competitors for making management decisions on further business strategy and tactics.

The concept of competition is a scheme of external factors of influence that carry both prospects and threats to business.

Therefore, the concept of competitive intelligence should be extended not only to existing companies that sell similar products or services, but also to possible future competitors, and also partly to suppliers and customers.

Information about counterparties can become a significant competitive advantage, and the extraction of insider information is a separate marketing task.

The purpose of competitive intelligence is only the actual extraction of information, and not its analysis. Analysis is present only as a tool for extracting the necessary information from indirect data.

The tasks of competitive intelligence are an auxiliary information function of supplementing marketing analysis for the purposes of strategic management.

At the same time, it is always taken into account that counteracting a competitor is preferable to copying it, because the "outrun" strategy is more profitable in the long run than the "catch up" strategy. In addition, we must remember that each ruble taken from a competitor, in contrast to income from the development of unoccupied niches, brings not only extra income, but also takes away the income of a competitor, which weakens him in the competition. And competitive intelligence is aimed, most often, at strengthening the negative tendencies of a competitor, while the rest of marketing is looking for new niches.

In some activities, the commercial collection of information about companies is an integral part of the business process, for example, in marketing, journalism, consulting and recruiting.

Objectives of competitive intelligence:

Determination of the true strategy of competitors to adjust their own strategy

True strategy rarely aligns with the mission of the company. Understanding the direction of a competitor's trend line makes it possible to determine how successful competition will be in this field of activity in the future. Perhaps the project should be accelerated in the direction of the competitor's movement in order to occupy this field first, or perhaps one should not start a certain project, but use resources to occupy another market niche.

Determining the potential of competitors (about their strengths and weaknesses) to adjust their own strategy

A company can do one thing and only one thing really well. Like it or not, the buyer believes it. So knowing what your competitors are really doing well is a warning against competing in that field and deciding to move your efforts in another direction. Knowledge of weaknesses is essential to discredit a competitor, especially if it is presented to them as a competitive advantage.

Determination of organizational, financial, technical and other ways to provide competitive advantages for the purposes of possible copying or neutralization.

The way business is carried out can constitute a significant competitive advantage. Parts of a set of measures or tools that make the production of a product or service cheaper or better are most often copied, depreciating this very advantage. The list of these solutions is quite extensive and is called the common word "technology".

Assessment of the total market capacity through the sum of competitors' shares to assess the state of the industry by changing dynamics

A change in the overall market capacity allows us to understand the correctness of our own actions: if the market capacity grows, and our sales volume remains unchanged, then something is being done wrong, and competitors are potentially winning our market share. If the market capacity is reduced, and the volume of sales is unchanged, then it is growing in relative volume and we are doing everything right. The easiest way to determine the guaranteed market capacity based on the fact of the total sales of all market participants.

Assessment of the degree of profitability of the terms of cooperation with certain suppliers and buyers

Knowledge of the terms of supply and sales helps to correctly determine their own field of bargaining with both. This is the most popular subject of competitive intelligence and exists, in one form or another, in every company.

Tasks of competitive intelligence:

Competitive intelligence most often solves the problem of finding out very specific indicators and circumstances, most often in the form of instructions from the management "to find out - how can they? Why can they, but we can't?" ours, in three shifts without days off, by the forces of illegal emigrants, thus reducing the share of overheads in the price in various ways.

Identifying a Competitor's Key Unique Selling Proposition

In the head of the consumer, one, or at most two, associations of the trademark and the quality that defines it are fixed. If Windows is the most feature rich system, then competing in this field will require colossal financial resources. The USP can be partially neutralized by adding a second one, which is an inherent disadvantage, for example, “constantly hangs”, or by opposing quality in another plane - “Linux is a free operating system”. The USP is not always widely known - it may not coincide with the declared one. Windows USP is a wide range of compatible applications, provided by its monopoly position in the market.Finding out the real USP is the subject of competitive intelligence.

Determination of the competitor's pricing policy

The most common marketing tool is monitoring competitor prices. The subject of intelligence is not a price list, but a table of discount coefficients for it. In the field of b2b, this is most often classified information, carefully camouflaged with a system of individual discounts and bonuses. The smaller the client market, the more difficult it is to find out the prices, the more unique they are for each of the clients. Competitive intelligence is especially important when participating in tenders.

Determining how to promote activities or products

The distribution method, the sales organization, can be copied, and the main and additional distribution channels can be "beaten off". The most successful schemes for remuneration of sales representatives, systems of discounts and rewards, little-known distribution channels, new markets, the prospects of which have been proven with the funds of the marketing department of competitors - all this is a subject of interest.

Determining the line of development of a competitor

What direction is the competitor developing most actively and why, is it worth fighting with him in this field, what will he easily “surrender”, and what will he fight for “until the last bullet” - everything you need to know when planning your own development strategy. Perhaps you are just about to get into PIN vending machines, at that very time the staff has already been recruited in the same department of the largest Internet provider in your area. Does it make sense to fight?

Determining the range of real competitive advantages

Knowing the strengths of a competitor allows, at least, to avoid stupidity in discrediting a competitor, directing efforts to obvious advantages. They should nobly agree and exalt and improve the more important, from your point of view, benefits of cooperation.

Determining the range of significant shortcomings of a competitor

This knowledge, which is especially unknown to clients, impresses them when it is voiced. In addition, a competitor's weakness, especially if it is inherent, is a field for development and promotion of one's own advantage. "We have a shorter queue" - a classic parry of a small company against a large one.

Determination of the circle and conditions of cooperation of contractors-suppliers of a competitor

Knowledge of prices, deferred payment, the amount of commodity lending, and similar conditions for cooperation makes it possible to achieve conditions for oneself no worse than those of competitors, or, at least, determines the edge of competitive opportunities

Determination of the circle and conditions of cooperation of counterparties-buyers of a competitor

The same is true for clients. Buyers often, if not always, exaggerate the merits of doing business with your competitors in order to get what they want, not what they can.

Determining the range and conditions of cooperation of counterparties of the competitor's service

Suppliers that serve competitors' businesses, such as transport companies that provide communications, provide rentals, affect the overall level of costs. Surely among them there are very successful solutions that you yourself did not expect.

Determination of a group of key counterparties of a competitor

Knowledge of a competitor's key customer group is essential when planning your own sales. Usually they "do not encroach" on them, because this is a war not for life but for death. But if the war suddenly broke out, this knowledge will also help to strike the strongest blow.

Identification of key persons of the competitor organization and their real status

It happens that the director of the company decides little, and the fifty-fifth deputy influences the policy of the company. The definition of top personnel can help predict the future policy of a competitor, based on psychological characteristics, helps to better understand the boundaries of a competitor's possible actions. The impact on "agents of influence" is sometimes technically simpler and more effective than on the management of a competing company.

Identification of external key supporters and the degree of their connection

Identification of personalities, supporting the competitor and providing him with administrative, financial and other resources, allows you to know the limits of the competitor's capabilities and makes it possible to weaken or even destroy these ties. It even happens that everything "rests" on them, it is enough to quarrel them for the complete destruction of a competitor. To do this, it is necessary to know the nature of this connection. The most stable ties are family ties, backed up by mutual financial obligations.

Determination of sources of current financing of a competitor

The source of initial capital and development funds - bank loans, private loans, own investments - determines the margin of financial stability of a competitor and, as a rule, clarifies the previous point.

Assessment of the prospects for investment financial resources of a competitor

The ability to attract additional loans, loans, and investments determines the financial capabilities of a competitor, which makes it possible to predict its development. The possibility or impossibility of borrowing money on time can decide the outcome of both the battle and the entire war.

Determining the structure of income by type of activity or product

Determining the amount and structure of revenue allows you to judge the stability, priorities and main "food area" of a competitor. If the main income of a consulting firm comes from auditing services, it can afford to promote legal reference systems both at dumping prices, and calmly part with this direction in the future.

Determining the cost structure by activity and product

The cost structure allows you to judge how the competitor manages its own resources, and, taking into account the previous paragraph, compare them with your own, determine the amount of profitability of the activity and each of the competitor's products. Competitor pricing is easy to predict with this information. A competitor's high fixed costs can seriously knock him down in a price war.

Determining the profitability of activities or products

The performance of products allows for comparative analysis to improve their own performance, and also shows the limits of competition. With a profitability of 15%, the competitor has the same discount threshold - then you know that he will work at a loss.

Determination of the mechanism and structure of creating added value in the context of the enterprise's economy

Knowing the nature and location of added value, you can easily predict what a competitor will fight hardest for, where you can do him the most damage if necessary. For example, the main income of many enterprises in the West is the "inflated" exchange growth of the enterprise's shares on the stock market, and not at all the profit of activity.

Determination of the structure of business processes for creating added value in the context of procedural implementation

In what place and at what moment the greatest added value arises allows us to judge what the competitor will "hold on to", what is well organized, and where his weak points are. You may easily be sold an oil refinery, but not gas stations. It must be remembered that in business, unprofitable sites become unprofitable much more easily than profitable ones.

Definition of technical development plans for the activity or product

The detection of technical innovations, commonly referred to as industrial espionage, allows either copying or countering their introduction to the market. It is the theft of technical solutions, technologies and inventions that is most often called competitive intelligence.

Classification of methods:

Direct and indirect

Direct methods are called methods of obtaining information of direct interest. For example, obtaining the volume of sales from the quarterly report of a joint-stock company published in the media is a direct method.

An indirect method is a method of calculating an indicator of interest from others related to it. Most competitive intelligence methods are indirect because indirect data is more readily available.

For example, the value of real profit is easily extracted from the official cash flow statement, because revenue data is most often reliable, and expenses can be determined based on common sense, calculating the required organizational resources and their market value.

Surveillance and infiltration

Surveillance is called outdoor without contact with representatives of a competitor, as they say, at a distance. Any method that uses contacts with members of a competing organization is associated with an invasion of it. You can’t see much from a distance, so most competitive intelligence methods involve obtaining information from employees of a competitor’s company under some plausible pretext, more or less common in ordinary business life. It is better, of course, to carry out penetration not by the forces of your own staff, but by the forces involved from the employees of consulting companies that provide such services, or acquaintances, friends and relatives, at worst. In especially serious cases - preferably residents from another city.

In lies, a sense of proportion must be strictly observed.

All contacts are best made with a tired intonation in your voice. Lazily slow speech makes it possible to hide interest and time for reflection if you are asked a question to which you have not thought out the answer.

Competitive intelligence techniques:

A list of fundamentally possible methods and techniques is given below without description, since they are so diverse and their number is so large that an entire chapter can be devoted to each of them. Therefore, in order to save printing space, the detailed description has been omitted.

Collection of information from open sources

Open sources - print media, the Internet, various professional meetings, industry reports, reports provided to government bodies that are not commercial secrets. The larger the object of competitive intelligence, the more information about it in open sources.

Collection of non-public information

The less known the competitor, the less information about him in open sources. Most often, you have to look for information in the immediate vicinity of a competitor or directly from him.

Here a lot depends on the artistry of the "scout". The ability to inspire confidence, provoke not the best feelings, vanity, in the first place, provides more than half of the success.

Starting from this point, the implementation of techniques makes sense if "at stake" are very, very significant amounts. Only interests worth millions of "non-Russian" rubles can justify spending several thousand dollars.

Methods, starting from paragraph 19, violate both the Laws "On Commercial Secrets", "On Banking", "On Police", "On Public Service", and the Criminal Code in terms of invasion of privacy, illegal entry into the premises, illegal access to information systems, abuse of power, illegal business activities, as well as more serious crimes related to recruitment - blackmail, threat of violence, bribery.

Therefore, these methods are given for cognitive and informational purposes, as well as the organization of counteraction and their use is strongly discouraged.

It should be noted that in order to recognize information as reliable, it is necessary to match it from two or three different sources.

At first, I wanted to give only legal methods of collecting information, but this is not quite the right approach. Therefore, I will bring with related comments) the most used, as well as those that are widely known and surrounded by numerous myths, but in fact are practically not used.

In addition, in the list of methods, I will not mention the methods of economic and business analysis, which, in fact, are used almost more often than some specialized methods for obtaining information, especially when it comes to obtaining preventive information and forecasting the market situation. Intelligence analysts should master these methods, identifying market trends and trends and predicting the situation for the future.

Finally, when choosing one or another method of intelligence gathering, it always makes sense to consider the possibility of obtaining this or similar information in the most economical and risk-free (from all sides) ways that have the least potential for "illuminating" your company's intelligence activities.

Information collection methods are presented in the order of their complexity.

PASSIVE methods

Collection of information from open sources. For example, the media, the Internet, corporate publications and press, industry libraries, etc.

Passive observation - monitoring. Those. organization of continuous monitoring of certain media, Internet resources (including the so-called "invisible Internet" by special hardware), etc.

Using databases. Acquisition and use of databases (including "gray", pirated, etc.) of various ministries, departments, banks, insurance and commercial structures, etc., traded on the intellectual property markets.

Inferential Information or Analytical Open Method. In fact, the derivation of new knowledge based on existing information and previously obtained data.

Basic rules for the work of a competitive intelligence officer:
Do not break the Law - it can punish.
Do not ignore public opinion - it can destroy.

ACTIVE methods intelligence gathering

Telephone surveys and consultations. Collection of information from various sources (industry experts, consultants, employees of competitors, customers and consumers, suppliers, etc.) that have the necessary information.

Polls are conducted using the cover legend. Interviews and consultations may be open-ended or carried out "in the dark", i.e., when the source does not realize that he is providing important information to the interviewer.

Getting information in (chat) forums. Use of forums, etc. on-line discussions on the Internet to obtain information (from competitors, suppliers, customers, etc.). Provocations of a competitor's employees for statements by targeted questions or topics on a forum on the Internet.

This method is also carried out using cover legend. Just as in the previous method, the collection of information can be carried out openly or "blindly".

Visiting exhibitions and conferences. A very effective method of obtaining information. Visiting specialized exhibitions and conferences allows you to get information on the business profile and make acquaintances. Visiting non-core exhibitions, conferences, other cultural, sports, leisure events, etc. character provides good opportunities for making new acquaintances, etc.

This method is carried out using a cover legend. The collection of information can be carried out openly or "blindly".

Disguised Polls. “Plucking” information from the personnel of competing structures by specially designed (“disguised”) questions at scientific and technical conferences, congresses, meetings or symposiums.

Purchase of competitor's products with subsequent engineering analysis. Those. complete disassembly of the product to see what's new inside.

The purchase is carried out legally, but with the use of a cover story, i.e. not on behalf of your company, but on behalf of some neutral individual or legal entity, so as not to aggravate relations.

Legal visits to competitors. The “delegation” includes the most experienced employees who are able (with a simple inspection) to identify differences and subtleties in the production and business processes of competitors.

Direct covert visual surveillance behind the activities or actions of an object of intelligence interest.

It can be carried out using a cover legend, for example, imitation of road, harvest, etc. works. Another option is observation through a secret observation post.

covert surveillance for contacts of key persons of a competitor organization or other persons of interest in order to establish them or establish their connections, contacts, etc.

Surveys of common customers and/or common suppliers(other representatives of the infrastructure of a competing company) or collecting information from other competitors.

Carried out using a cover legend. The collection of information can be carried out openly or "blindly".

Collecting information under the guise of an applicant for a vacancy or from former applicants. Collecting information from former employees of a competitor's company.

As in the previous case,

Using Relationships: in state authorities; in law enforcement agencies; in the banking sector; in other available and relevant external sources of information.

It can be carried out by acquaintance or using a cover legend. At the same time, specific interests and/or interest in specific objects of reconnaissance interest can be legendized. The collection of information can be carried out openly or "blindly".

Job interviews with employees of competing firms (without the intention of accepting this “candidate” for work in their company).

Carried out using a cover legend. The collection of information is carried out "blindly".

Conversations with experts or representatives of a competitor of an enterprise under the guise of a public opinion poll; survey of a competitor under the guise of marketing research.

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a sociologist, journalist, etc.

Job offers (false) to leading specialists competitors to find out information of interest from them during conversations and questionnaires with filling out questionnaires, without the intention of hiring them;

Carried out using a cover legend. The collection of information is carried out "blindly".

lure the most competent employees from competing companies (“headhunting”).

Primary approaches to employees of interest are carried out using the cover story, on behalf of the company (recruitment agency) of the intermediary. The collection of information is carried out "blindly".

Employee bribery a competing firm or other persons involved in a competitor's marketing communications.

Organization and maintenance of acquaintances with an employee of a competitor from a third party.

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a third party that does not belong to the company carrying out the operation.

Conducting false multi-way negotiations about transactions in the course of which additional information is constantly requested with subsequent withdrawal from the contract.

False negotiations with a competitor regarding the acquisition of a license for the products we are interested in.

The method is used when engineering analysis of products is not enough and additional information is required. ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a non-competitor company. The legend used by the company must pass the plausibility check.

Organization of attempted cooperation or cooperation, with preliminary negotiations and exchange of information.

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a non-competitor company. The legend used by the company must pass the plausibility check.

Organization of cooperation (including negotiations and exchange of information) under the guise of a service provider on behalf of a third company.

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a non-competitor company. The legend used by the company must pass the plausibility check.

Organizing an investment attempt(full or partial purchase of a competitor's business) from a third party.

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a non-competitor company. The legend used by the company must pass the plausibility check.

Organization (proposals, declarations) of a merger attempt companies (including negotiations and exchange of information).

ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a non-competitor company. The legend used by the company must pass the plausibility check.

Recruitment. Using a recruited agent to obtain information. The information obtained is studied and compared with the available information obtained from other sources and by other methods.

PRACTICALLY NOT USED!!! .

Recruitment is a very complex intelligence operation, which does not guarantee against "failures" and "flare" of intelligence activities, because the recruited agent, as a rule, is not a professional intelligence officer. Finally, recruitment is expedient for a long time and in relation to "closed" (secret) objects, information about which is not possible to obtain in other ways.

Implementation. The actual introduction of your employee into a competitor's company or the introduction of your people into its infrastructure.

An infiltration, as a special operation, is ALWAYS carried out using a cover story, on behalf of a third party that does not belong to the company carrying out the operation.

The direct infiltration of a competitor's own intelligence officer into a competitor's company provides the intelligence structure with very broad opportunities to obtain information.

At the same time, the existing clichés and stereotypes about espionage misinterpret the content of the activities of an infiltrated intelligence officer and his capabilities, especially in relation to the GOALS and TASKS of commercial intelligence.

Due to LOW PRODUCTIVITY and WIDE OPPORTUNITIES FOR OBTAINING INFORMATION BY OTHER METHODS, this method of obtaining information in commercial intelligence PRACTICALLY NOT USED!!!

As in the previous case, the introduction is advisable for a long time and in relation to objects, information about which is not possible to obtain in other ways.

Use of methods and means of unauthorized access. Use of technical means of audio and video surveillance. Eavesdropping of negotiations conducted in competing firms by intercepting messages and negotiations conducted over technical means of communication with the help of special technical reconnaissance means. The use of technical means for unauthorized access to information media.

in commercial intelligence THESE METHODS ARE RARELY USED, rather as an EXCEPTION. The discovery of special technical means unequivocally reveals the activities of the intelligence officer, and his main work of obtaining information will be significantly complicated by the increased activity of the security service.

Disabling the means of protection and protection of information. Intentional blocking of the operation of information security tools, violation of access control measures or access to information, data or documents classified as commercial or other secrets.

In view of the unequivocal "flare" of intelligence activities and the EXTENDED OPPORTUNITIES FOR OBTAINING THIS INFORMATION BY OTHER METHODS, this method of obtaining information in commercial intelligence NOT USED!!!

Commercial intelligence methods involve complete invisibility of one's own activity, which is almost impossible to detect.

Penetration into personal computers and computer systems(networks) in order to obtain confidential information or personal data from them.

This method, based on the goals and objectives of commercial intelligence, is used by an infiltrated employee extremely rarely, if possible and with strict observance of secrecy measures.

Another situation is when such penetration is carried out from the outside (hacker attack), using passwords set by an embedded intelligence officer.

Carrying out secret and unauthorized copying (reproduction) of confidential documents containing KNOW-HOW technologies using modern office equipment or covert copying.

Carrying out theft and unauthorized removal of information about KNOW-HOW technology, about individuals and legal entities, which are subsequently used to organize the production of products and create various kinds of compromising evidence.

Embedded Scout CAN'T AFFORD THEFT anything, firstly, it is a criminal offense, and secondly, the loss of important documents and information is always visible and noticeable. This immediately detects illegal activity and activates the security and law enforcement agencies, which greatly complicates intelligence work or makes it impossible.

Theft of drawings, samples, documentation, etc. Theft of product samples, drawings, documentation on the technology of its production, etc. Theft of drawings and technical documentation.

In view of the unequivocal "flare" of intelligence activities and EXTENDED OPPORTUNITIES FOR OBTAINING THIS INFORMATION BY OTHER METHODS (for example, legal purchase with subsequent engineering analysis), this method of obtaining information in commercial intelligence NOT USED!!!

It must be firmly understood that in a legal business there is PRACTICALLY NO such INFORMATION that could be accessed exclusively by illegal methods.

There are also very exotic methods for obtaining information, for example, "honey trap", implying the use of sexual weaknesses or preferences. In military or political intelligence, this method is used from time to time. The source of information is “substituted”, as a bait, the desired object of passion.

In commercial intelligence, again based on its strategic goals, such methods are practically inapplicable, because in this case, an employee (employee) should work in your intelligence apparatus, ready for adultery for the sake of the prosperity of the company's business. However, this method can be represented as:

Using an Existing Sex Object, to set up a competitor's employee as a source of information.

Organization of sexual contact of an employee of a competing company in order to strengthen personal contacts and its subsequent use as an informant in the dark.

In conclusion of the consideration of methods for collecting information, let me remind you again:

It must be firmly understood that in a LEGAL business there is PRACTICALLY NO such INFORMATION that could be accessed exclusively by illegal methods.

Competitive Intelligence (CI) is a systematic and ethical program for collecting, analyzing, and managing information about the external environment that can influence a company's plans, decisions, and operations.

As you know, the most effective system of economic security today operates in the United States both at the state and at the corporate level. Therefore, the competitive intelligence system in US private business is of undoubted interest.

Intelligence activities are carried out by a specially created unit that operates in accordance with the requirements for intelligence.

CI groups are most commonly found in large firms, such as the Fortune 500 (a ranking of the world's 500 largest companies based on company revenue). For some smaller firms, one person may be assigned the task of CI. There are estimates that CI is performed at some level by 80% to 90% of firms through internal teams, outsourcing, or consulting firms.

The cost of conducting CI, as a rule, is limited to the rates of hired analysts - from $800 to $3 thousand per month for each.

The role of CI specialists is to distill, analyze and present the collected information for management. This detailed look reveals existing products in the market, new technologies (in particular cutting-edge technologies) on the horizon, how competitors have responded to previous initiatives, competitors' strengths and weaknesses, and more. The goal of CI is to gain an edge over competitors and protect your firm from their efforts. The principle of operation is "forewarned is forearmed".

Some firms use simplistic external sources such as executive intuition, reading trade magazines, or sales gossip.

The main capabilities of the company in connection with the use of CI:

Forecasting changes in the market and the actions of competitors and suppliers;

Identification of new or potential competitors;

Opportunity to learn from the successes and mistakes of other companies;

Tracking information related to patents and licenses;

Assessment of the feasibility of acquiring a new business;

Study of new technologies, products and processes that may affect a particular business;

Studying political, legislative or regulatory changes that may affect a particular business;

Using the weaknesses of a competitor in your advertising;

Collection of information about partners and clients.

CI is a two-sided game, i.e. competitors also collect and analyze data about the firm.

The whole problem of competitive intelligence is not that there is no information, but that there is too much of it. Companies use web pages, press releases, and any other means of advertising they can afford to display their products, thus increasing their share price. In other words, they brag, they talk, often when they shouldn't. Sometimes they lie. The job of CI is to gather all this information and put it together so that the top executives in the firm can understand what competitors are doing and what they plan to do.

Classification of methods for collecting information CI:

1. Direct and indirect. Direct methods are called methods of obtaining information of direct interest. An indirect method is a method of calculating an indicator of interest from others related to it. Most competitive intelligence methods are indirect because indirect data is more readily available.

2. Surveillance and penetration. Surveillance is called outdoor without contact with representatives of a competitor, as they say, at a distance. It is better to carry out penetration not by the forces of your own personnel, but by the forces involved from the employees of consulting companies that provide such services, or from acquaintances, friends and relatives. In especially serious cases - residents from another city.

Competitive intelligence techniques:

1. Collection of information from open sources.

When conducting competitive intelligence, you can use everything that is in the public sphere (open sources):

1) information from the Government;

3) databases on the Internet;

4) magazines and newspapers, interviews and reviews;

5) collection and analysis of financial reports;

6) exhibitions, conferences, seminars;

7) speeches of the authorities;

8) information from competitors, suppliers, distributors and customers;

9) collection and analysis of industry marketing reports.

The larger the object of competitive intelligence, the more information about it in open sources.

2. Collection of classified information.

The less known the competitor, the less information about him in open sources. Most often, you have to look for information in the immediate vicinity of a competitor or directly from him.

Here a lot depends on the artistry of the "scout". The ability to inspire confidence, provoke not the best feelings, vanity, in the first place, provides more than half of the success. The search methods for information here are as follows:

1) survey of common customers or common suppliers;

2) collecting information from former employees, applicants, competitors;

3) incomplete or completed trial purchase;

4) organizing an attempt to cooperate or cooperate on its own behalf, under the guise of a potential supplier or under the guise of a service provider;

5) survey of a competitor under the guise of marketing research;

6) provocation of an employee of a competitor with a targeted question on an Internet forum;

7) collecting information under the guise of an applicant;

8) organizing and maintaining acquaintance with a competitor's employee from a third party;

9) use of anonymous Internet dating with an employee of a competing organization;

Starting from this point, the implementation of techniques makes sense if there are very, very significant sums at stake.

10) organization of cooperation under the guise of a service provider on behalf of a third company;

11) organization of a merger attempt on its own behalf;

12) organizing an investment attempt (full or partial purchase of a competitor's business) from a third party;

13) covert surveillance of the office, warehouse, employees, executives of a competitor company in order to find out work patterns, suppliers, buyers, sales volumes, possible problems that arise during the implementation of the competitor's key business processes and weaknesses in these business processes;

The nature of competitive intelligence presents CI analysts with ethical dilemmas, both in the work they do and in the tasks assigned to them. The code of ethics is provided by their professional organization, the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals (www.scip.org). Analysts must, of course, comply with applicable laws, for example in the US, such as the Trade Secrets Act (adopted in 46 states) and the US Espionage Act of 1996, and must respect their own firm's rules on information. They must tell the truth, use their own names and affiliations when conducting surveys or interviews.

All methods, starting from point 14, violate the laws, so they can be attributed to industrial espionage.

14) illegal removal of information from communication channels (e-mail, internal corporate computer network, telephones), as well as hidden listening to office premises (use of technical means of audio, video surveillance), installation of GPS tracking of the subject's transport;

15) the use of connections in state authorities, law enforcement agencies, the criminal environment, the banking sector;

16) copying information system data of competitors;

17) penetration into the information system of a competitor;

18) recruitment of personnel of a competitor;

19) the introduction of its personnel into the structure of a competitor;

20) external surveillance of contacts of key persons of a competitor organization;

21) using an existing sexual object of a competitor's employee as a source of information;

22) organization of sexual contact of an employee of a competing organization with the subsequent use of the object as an informant;

23) bribery or blackmail of the company's employees for reconnaissance of the necessary information;

24) theft of documents or products;

25) sabotage - putting industrial and other facilities out of action.

In addition to legal and illegal methods of obtaining information, there are so-called gray methods in the intelligence arsenal (digging in the trash, initiating sham lawsuits in order to gain access to the competitor's documents, which he usually carefully hides).

As an example of when a company crosses the line of legality in the search for information, the following situation can be cited. The Boeing Corporation lost $1 billion after being convicted of stealing classified documents from a competitor, the Lockheed Corporation. A Boeing employee confessed to being in possession of a very large amount of confidential papers from a rival company, including top secret papers on Lockheed's pricing policy.

The appendix reflects the methods of industrial espionage and alternative technologies of competitive intelligence, as well as criminal liability for industrial espionage on the example of Russian legislation.

On the Internet, a large number of sites are devoted to competitive intelligence. At the same time, on some of them it is possible to make a certain comparison of the company with its competitors. As an example, I will describe the two most interesting, effective and free directions (methods):

1. Website traffic comparison - Compete.com.

Every organization wants to know what traffic its competitors have and compare it with their own.

The most convenient tool for comparing web traffic is Compete.com, here the most interesting is the review of unique visitors. This site well demonstrates whether the traffic of your site is growing compared to the site of competitors, shows annual cycles in the market, in order to further help you make your own analytics. The site cannot be effective with low traffic (less than 20,000 unique visitors per month). There simply isn't enough data to make accurate trends.

On Compete.com you can compare up to five sites at a time and create save portfolios of up to five sites each.

An example of comparing the attendance of yandex.ru and google.ru using this site is shown in fig. 3.5 and fig. 3.6.

Rice. 3.5 Data on attendance of sites yandex.ru and google.ru for March 2011

Thus, from fig. 3.5 shows that the attendance of yandex.ru is 3 times higher than the attendance of the site google.ru. And you can also see the monthly and annual change in attendance.

Rice. 3.6 Attendance of sites yandex.ru and google.ru for the year (from April 2010 to March 2011)

Also very useful is AttentionMeter.com, which combines data from Compete, Quantcast, Google Trends, Alexa and Technorati in one place. This is convenient, but the analysis is not as deep as on individual sites.

2. Level search in MarketLeap.com search engines

In order to be successful in traffic to a company's website on the Internet, you need to know how high the position of the site in search engines. This metric used to measure the number of pages indexed by search engines is called search engine saturation. It can be found by going to any of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Yandex) and entering special search phrases for each site in which there is an interest. But there is an easier way - MarketLeap.com. Its search intensity can compare up to five sites. An example of this site is shown in Fig. 3.7.

Rice. 3.7

Thus, mail.ru has the leading position in search engines, yandex.ru has the second place and rambler.ru has the last one.

Just as a firm performs competitive intelligence on other firms, they will also perform competitive intelligence. It is necessary not to disclose what the firm does and what it can do. An enterprise should not reveal too much, but should limit the flow of information as much as possible. Public companies also have a minimum of information they must disclose. And there is no need to reveal more. The real secrets of a firm are its intentions.

Examining yourself as well as your competitors will help you determine what your competitors will be looking for and therefore what you need to protect.

The question of the differences between counterintelligence and intelligence in business regularly becomes the subject of discussions at various sites where issues of competitive intelligence are discussed. It should be noted that at present, the concepts of intelligence and counterintelligence are very often confused, often this is due to the fact that many domestic and foreign experts voluntarily or involuntarily attribute intelligence activities in business exclusively to the field of security, i.e. defense against illegal activities of competitors, criminal structures, manifestations of facts of industrial (commercial) espionage, fraud and other existing risks. According to many authors, competitive counterintelligence of business is mainly the prerogative of the security services.

Competitive counterintelligence is a set of physical, technical, organizational and operational measures aimed at effective prevention, detection and suppression of reconnaissance and subversive actions by competitors and other aggressors.

If we consider the side of counterintelligence activities that the security service of the organization is engaged in, then the following methods can be listed:

1. Counterintelligence measures at the physical level:

Restriction or termination of unauthorized (uncontrolled) access to office premises by unauthorized persons;

Ensuring reliable protection and surveillance of the perimeter and places of possible access to the premises during non-working hours.

2. Organizational counterintelligence measures:

Development of a clear line of behavior for employees in communicating with visitors, general organization of workplaces, places for storing documents, location of office equipment, etc. ;

Limiting the circulation of documentation, information containing commercial secrets outside the office and after hours, as well as allowing only a certain circle of people to access corporate secrets;

Introduction and control of the regime of observance of trade secrets;

To put on papers a stamp of secrecy, confidentiality;

Separate the responsibilities and functions of departments so that each department has access to a limited part of classified information;

Checking and testing job candidates (individual testing, thorough interviews, checking their past jobs, reasons for dismissal;

Improving the system of personnel motivation, maintaining a competitive system of remuneration and bonus accruals, in combination with clearly defined and practically effective punishment measures;

Maintaining labor discipline, subordination, competitiveness and team spirit in the company, developing a corporate ideology and internal moral and ethical rules;

Regular checking of garbage, which may contain stolen floppy disks, printouts, etc. .

Practice shows that the majority (more than 75%) of leaks occur not due to malicious intent, but due to mistakes, inattention, carelessness, and negligence of employees.

3. Counterintelligence measures of a technical nature:

Organization and maintenance of an effective computer security system, monitoring of incoming and outgoing e-mails from corporate or Internet resources (personal mail, ICQ, social networks) of employees;

Periodic check of office premises for the presence of listening devices, other technical means of espionage.

4. Operational counterintelligence measures:

Internal - periodic monitoring of the activities of individual employees, monitoring of corporate mobile subscriber connections, analysis of employee reports in combination with the results of monitoring him;

Measures for counter-surveillance during important meetings, negotiations, transactions outside the office and on foreign territory;

Operational counterintelligence measures of an external nature (constant awareness of possible intelligence and subversive activities of competitors, identification of threats).

Counterintelligence activities should not contain only active methods of a defensive nature on "one's own territory". An organization needs to take active defensive measures in competitor territory, for example by planting intelligence agents in competitor firms not to look for information about them, but to find out what competitors want to know about us and how they conduct competitive intelligence regarding our enterprises.

Thus, we can conclude that competitive counterintelligence is no less important than competitive intelligence.

UDC 339.137.22

Adashkevich Yu.N., Candidate of Yu. n, CJSC "Special Information Service"

COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE (BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE)

Today we can say that competitive intelligence has evolved as a hybrid process of strategic planning and marketing research activities. At one of the stages of business development, companies began to widely apply strategic planning in their activities. Important components of this whole process were the analysis of the competitor, customer and supplier. However, most companies were not ready to collect and analyze information on a systematic, routine, day-to-day basis. In addition, research activities and planning activities remained separate processes, without any close interaction.

The very concept of competitive intelligence has existed for a long time, but it was brought to life and took shape only in the mid-1990s. Like many innovative and fresh business ideas, the overall adoption of competitive intelligence by the business world has been slow. And competitive intelligence itself has evolved slowly, but has made a sharp leap in the last few years.

Many foreign companies have organized and effectively concentrated their resources to carry out work in the field of competitive intelligence. Russia, in order for its economy to be competitive, should not remain aloof from this process.

A market economy built on competition is extremely dynamic and risky. Under the conditions of risk and uncertainty, the role of complete, timely and reliable information as the basis for making managerial decisions increases significantly.

First of all, we are talking about the competitive environment. If a company is faced with the task of occupying a market niche or retaining it, information and analytical data is indispensable. Any market participant must have a full understanding of who he will have to compete with, in

than the essence of the threats to its economic well-being. Achieving superiority in the competitive struggle, and indeed economic survival in general, is impossible without knowing the intentions of competitors, the main trends in business and political life, risk analysis and other factors affecting entrepreneurial activity.

Competitive intelligence is the most important tool for minimizing risks and ensuring profits, since in a certain sense it is an “early warning” system about the intentions of competitors, possible turns and changes in the market, and the possible results of the impact of political technologies on entrepreneurial activity.

trends in business, monitors emerging opportunities and warns of impending dangers.

Competitive intelligence solves the problem that investors usually set for management: to avoid the irrational use of capital and other resources, to avoid mistakes and mistakes leading to bankruptcy. Such errors most often occur when top managers make decisions based on incorrect ideas and assumptions, without having reliable information at hand.

Thus, the viability of the enterprise is largely ensured by a well-organized system for collecting business information, its timely analysis and distribution. Such a system was called competitive (business) intelligence, designed to identify threats, reduce business risks, and develop optimal management decisions.

Not surprisingly, competitive intelligence is actively strengthening its position in the structure of modern companies around the world, both large and small. Regardless of the downturns in the global market, the business intelligence sector is growing. IBM, Xerox, Motorola, Merck, Intel, Microsoft are just a few of the many multinational corporations that have made competitive intelligence one of their core activities. Every year, world-famous companies spend, under one pretext or another, up to $10 billion on competitive intelligence.

You can find the phrases "business intelligence", "business intelligence", "economic intelligence" and some others that are equivalent or close to competitive intelligence. The term "competitive intelligence" has taken root in the United States. In Western Europe, "business intelligence" is more common. And yet, the most complete and capacious essence of this process

reflects the term "competitive intelligence".

The growing role of competitive intelligence is determined by the following factors:

The rapid growth of the pace of business life;

Information overload;

Increasing global competition;

Increasing the aggressiveness of competitors;

Strong influence of political changes, etc.

In Russia, competitive intelligence is sometimes perceived as something like “industrial espionage”. In developed market economies, competitive intelligence acquired a legal status two decades ago and has now become a necessary component of market strategy and tactics. The understanding of the need for competitive intelligence is facilitated by the international “Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals” established more than a decade and a half ago, headquartered in the United States (SCIP www.scip.org), which now has several thousand members: executives and managers of companies specializing in this field, independent experts, information management specialists.

Identifying competitive intelligence with corporate, industrial espionage is a big and common misconception. If "industrial espionage" is a close relative of military and political intelligence, since it "gives preference" to illegal methods of collecting information, then competitive intelligence has nothing to do with the knights of the "cloak and dagger".

Competitive intelligence is primarily the use of modern information technologies for the legal collection and analysis of data on the competitive environment and competitors. It is carried out exclusively within the framework of the regulatory and legal field, and it achieves results thanks to

analytical processing of a huge amount of a wide variety of open information materials.

The period of transition to this civilized way of competition is coming in Russian business. Real competition (civilized) is the main superiority of a market economy over an administrative one. This is the lever that makes the economy efficient.

This is where the information component about a competitor comes to the fore. In order to surpass the rival in the organization of production, the quality of goods and services, productivity, efficiency, first of all, you need to know at least the specific indicators of these components, as well as the forms and methods of their implementation in practice.

By studying competitors, identifying the reasons, secrets (yes, secrets) of their effectiveness, strengths and weaknesses, a civilized manufacturer actively uses the knowledge gained, implements advanced ideas in itself, improves them, and goes further. This is managerial knowledge, technical, technological, scientific, marketing. Catching up and ahead of the opponent, the entrepreneur encourages him to reciprocate improvement.

An entrepreneur isolated from such information is a blind kitten. The lack of information about the activities of competitors, the refusal to study them, or at least underestimation of the importance of this, is a direct road to regression, lagging behind, and, therefore, death.

Thus, we are not wrong when we say that competitive intelligence is the engine of economic and technological progress.

Sometimes you can hear that increased attention to the organization and conduct of competitive intelligence places an additional burden on the budget, diverts resources from the main tasks of management. It's a delusion. Competitive time

exploration does not require huge material costs and certainly does not mean a waste of time. After all, as we have already decided, by and large, this is the correct organization and systematization of the collection and analysis of information. Experience has long convinced of the multiple payback of the costs of information and analytical research. This is not a direct profit, but an avoidance of financial and moral losses.

Many of our managers sometimes do not even suspect that they themselves or their employees (security service, commercial department, marketing department) in one way or another, in one form or another, conduct competitive intelligence, even if they have never heard of this term, because such work is necessary and inevitable.

Let's go through briefly the main postulates that characterize the essence of competitive intelligence.

So, competitive intelligence is not just a tool for studying the competitive environment. This is an actual business process that arose at the intersection of economics, jurisprudence and special intelligence disciplines and techniques.

The objects of competitive intelligence research are a legal entity, for example, a non-governmental organization in the form of a private company, a commercial bank, a joint-stock company; an individual, such as the head of a competitor; situation, trend in a particular market segment.

The main area of application of competitive intelligence is the competitive environment.

The purpose of competitive intelligence is information and analytical support for making an optimal management decision that ensures the achievement of competitive superiority over other market participants.

The main tasks of competitive intelligence:

Continuous monitoring and collection of open information about the competitive environment;

Analytical processing of data obtained from all possible information sources;

Presentation of the results to management for management decision-making;

Storage and dissemination of results.

In the modern "concept of competitive intelligence" as a tool for achieving competitive advantages, the model of "five forces" by M. Porter is used, which govern competition in the industry and characterize the state of the competitive environment. This model is also used to identify potential threats against the firm and plan their own actions based on them.

These are the five powers:

Threat from existing competitors;

The threat of the emergence of substitute goods or substitute services that are competitive in terms of price;

The threat of the emergence of new or potential competitors;

Threat from suppliers of raw materials and components;

Threat from consumers of goods and services.

The findings of competitive intelligence are used both for making tactical decisions and for developing strategic directions for the development of the enterprise. In its work, competitive intelligence widely uses the techniques and methods of strategic planning, which allows you to get a comprehensive picture of the situation on the market and clarify the positions that the company can claim. A lot of competitive intelligence also draws from the arsenal of marketing tools, whose efforts are mainly aimed at identifying and analyzing consumer demand in a particular market segment.

Basic Information Needs of Competitive Intelligence

The analysis of practice shows that enterprises that are aware of the value and necessity of competitive intelligence show the greatest interest in the following information about their competitors:

compromising information;

Information about the conclusion of contracts;

Resale of trade secrets;

Information contributing to the capture of sales markets and raw materials.

They are also interested in the financial position of competitors and partners, financial reports and forecasts, access to information networks, marketing and pricing strategy, terms of sale of firms and the possibility of their merger, technical specifications of products, prospects for the development of the firm, the security system of the firm, the organizational structure of the firm, leading specialists, financial transactions of competitors and partners, customers and suppliers, sales reports and their prices, commissioning of new production facilities, modernization and expansion of existing ones, merging with other firms, strategy and tactics of doing business with competitors.

This includes legal and financial and economic analysis of the planned commercial operation, analysis of the objective capabilities of partners and participants in the transaction (solvency, legal capacity, etc.), subjective characteristics of partners and participants (probability of fraud, professional literacy, etc.), identification of relationships with criminal structures, the degree to which they control partners and participants in the transaction, determining the forms and methods of protecting the funds and property used (technology for moving funds and goods, the possibility and registration of collateral, etc.), as well as

methods of control over individual parties to the transaction at all its stages, countering attempts to cause damage from third-party legal entities and individuals.

Main information flows and sources of information

As a rule, information flows about the external environment are structured as follows:

1. Legislation and its planned changes in the areas, regions, countries of the company's activities.

2. Theory and practice of the work of state administrative bodies, including law enforcement and control structures.

3. The current state of the market sectors of the company's entrepreneurial activity, the forecast of their development.

4. Competitors and partners: state and forecast.

5. State and forecast of the criminogenic situation.

6. Investment climate in the regions and sectors of the market for the proposed investment.

The average set of sources looks like this:

1. Media materials, including databases of press archives.

2. Internet (subject to the use of professional methods of search, selection and processing).

3. Databases on subjects of economic activity in different countries with characteristics of their economic situation (SINS has the ability to work on-line with approximately 10,000 such databases located in different countries);

4. Databases of analytical reports on the political and economic situation of various regions and market sectors; including professional publications, including specialized

periodicals (books, magazines, newspapers, monographs, reviews, reports, speech abstracts).

5. Address and reference databases.

6. Detectives and their associations.

7. Experts, practitioners, consultants in various industries, directions, segments (including in the law enforcement environment); active players in certain sectors of the market (in a word - experts).

8. Analytical divisions, specialized, industry research institutes, etc. generating output information and others.

9. Marketing agencies, marketers.

Considering the problem of information sources through the prism of its extraction technology, we get the following list: people; documentation; open publications; technical and electronic media; technical controls; products; industrial waste.

At first glance, the scheme looks simple. The difficulty is in creating and setting up a complex of reliable and reliable source-channels, as well as in their professional processing (analysis of the feedstock). An isolated channel or even their combination is of no serious value.

A high-quality product is created on the basis of the systematic work of a specialized infrastructure. It is then that a qualitative transition from preliminary, raw information (information) to output effective analytics (intelligence) is possible.

It is not always economically justified to maintain a full range of competitive intelligence, rely only on one's own strength and means (especially for small and medium-sized businesses). First of all, this concerns the system of information flows. Often, the "urgent" nature of the work requires highly qualified and in a certain way

re universal (and therefore highly paid) specialists. We need modern equipment. It's not easy to keep databases really up to date (which is something very different from primitive disks purchased from gray markets). And even in the presence of all this, the probability of high-quality and timely performance of work on their own is still largely an element of luck. In order to correctly navigate in the field of threats to business, it is necessary to deal with these problems constantly.

Distribution gets outsourcing: to build a security system or its individual blocks (especially information, CR) it is often more profitable to turn to specialized companies that produce a product in a completely different mode. Let's call this mode "production". It is characterized by a large regular flow of input and output information.

Large information and consulting agencies work in such a rhythm, including SInS (from 800 to 1500 informational occasions are processed monthly). This makes it possible to ensure the specialization of performers (primarily analysts) and departments, to form a single powerful information base, a system for accounting and controlling the production process, and to automate the processing and storage processes as much as possible.

information based on modern technologies, provide telecommunications access to the largest information centers, partner organizations. Such a company is required to enter into a developed information infrastructure, an effective algorithm for attracting specialized external experts.

We took the path of organizing an information pipeline, when all stages are performed by various services. The number and specialization of each is determined by the tasks of processing the corresponding information flows.

Literature:

1. Adashkevich Yu. Business in Russia: risks//Business Match. August 2000.

3. John Prescott, Stephen Miller. Competitive intelligence: Lessons from the trenches. - M.: Alpina Business Books, 2004.

3. Romachev N. R., Nezhdanov I. Yu. Competitive intelligence. - M.: Os-89 Publishing House, 2007.

4. Yarochkin V.I., Buzanova Ya.V. Corporate Intelligence. - M.: Publishing house Os-89.

5. Doronin A. I. Business intelligence. - M.: Os-89 Publishing House, 2003.

6. Yushchuk E. L. Competitive intelligence: marketing of risks and opportunities. - M.: Vershina, 2006.

7. Herring Ya. How much is your competitive

The article was received by the editors on 22.08.2007

Yu. Adashkevich, PhD (Law),

ZAO Spetsialnaya Informatsyonnaya Sluzhba

SURVEILLANCE IN BUSINESS COMPETITION

The concept of business surveillance was invented long ago but the practical implementation process began in the mid-90s only. Like many other innovations and fresh business ideas, the concept was treated with skepticism and much time passed before the idea was widely accepted by the business community. The very surveillance system developed slowly. It has made a breakthrough only recently. In order to become competitive, the Russian economy should become part of the above processes.

Almost any business operates in a competitive environment. It is believed that availability is good for both the business and their customers. constantly encourages development. In order for an organization to work effectively in the market, it is important to provide it with proper information about competitors, partners, and so on. For these purposes, competitive intelligence is used.

What is Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence is the collection of information for the effective decision-making of the organization. The purpose of competitive intelligence is to increase the competitiveness and efficiency of an organization or its individual units. There are also concepts of business intelligence, business intelligence, marketing, and others. In English, this concept is commonly referred to as Competitive Intelligence (CI).

Competitive intelligence can be used to learn best practices from competitors. What are your colleagues in other organizations doing, what products are they preparing to launch on the market? What will be the prices and promotions? Having this information can help your organization operate more effectively.

Moreover, the study of counterparties is carried out not only within the framework of competing organizations, but also in relation to partners. Studying the reputation of a new client, checking counterparties is a normal business practice. This is an important step in order not to lose money with a shell company.

business intelligence can be made using different channels of information. You can, for example, act as a mystery shopper and find out the prices of your competitors. It is possible to collect information from open sources - the Internet, a corporate website, a social network, a blog on youtube, and so on.

Competitive intelligence solves the following tasks:

search for favorable opportunities in the market;
analysis of possible risks and threats for business and taking countermeasures;
collection of information for effective decision making.

commercial intelligence may be tactical (operational) or may be strategic.

Business (competitive intelligence) uses legitimate means of collecting information and complies with ethical standards.

There is a fine line between competitive intelligence and industrial espionage. Competitive intelligence is legal, but industrial espionage is neither legal nor ethical.

Competitive intelligence in recruitment

Competitive intelligence is essentially the analytical work of a manager. When making any commercial decision, an entrepreneur must weigh the pros and cons. And, for example, when hiring staff - make inquiries about him from colleagues in the market. And at the interview itself, find out information from a potential employee about the companies in which he works or has worked before.

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