This excerpted portion of an article in the Report on Business, Build a killer survey, by MARK HEALY, in the Globe and Mail Update published on January 8, 2008, is a must read for anyone forced into doing Competitive Intelligence research without a strong background in this type of research. This article offers excellent, practical, and well reasoned advice.
In business, there are some dirty jobs as well. Carrying out competitive intelligence is one of them.
I get asked a lot ‘how’ to conduct competitive intelligence. i.e. how to extract information from organizations/firms/people that may or may not want to part with it. You can look this up online and find all kinds of vague moral and ethical guidelines, and links to nowhere. But no one really talks about what is acceptable and unacceptable, or how to do the work. Here are some simple guidelines and rules.
A. First, avoid it if at all possible…
B. Understand the rules of engagement…
So let’s focus on the four approaches/techniques that are widely accepted as above-board:
1. Just ask…
2. Mystery shopping…
3. The white paper approach…
For B2B environments, mystery shopping can be difficult if not impossible…
4. Job postings and recruiting events…
Mark Healy, P.Eng, MBA is a partner at Torque Customer Strategy. He teaches a “Demystifying Consulting” lecture series yearly at The Richard Ivey School of Business, as well as Schulich’s and Laurier’s Business Schools.
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