 AWARE Help & Support
Competitive & Marketing Intelligence Help
Although books and the web are useful for finding information, occasionally it can be difficult to find the answer - especially when the question is specific to a particular CI issue - perhaps applying something described theoretically to a real situation.
Our CI & Marketing Help service - where you can ask a question and get answered by a marketing & competitive intelligence expert - is provided for just these circumstances. We will answer your question for free if it intrigues us or does not require extensive research time or effort. (Note: Terms and Conditions apply - we may refuse to answer questions that we believe could involve illegal or unethical practices. We also will not spend time researching complex questions in the free service - although we will generally try and give pointers to how to do the research. Also, whereas we will guarantee confidentiality for our paid services, we reserve the right to include our answers to free questions as part of our FAQs or in articles we may write).
Over the years, we have been asked for help on a variety of CI related issues. Often we get asked the same question again and again - in different guises. Questions range from topics such as how to find pricing information and what is SWOT, PEST and Value Chain Analysis to queries on what is the difference between knowledge management, competitor intelligence and competitive intelligence and detailed requests for help with competitor strategy. We've collected some of these questions and included our response and you may find the solution on our Frequently Asked Questions pages.
Finally, we include a series of articles, tips and ideas on better practice. These have been published on our pages as a Quick Tip from the right column on many of our site pages, or are selected from our marketing tips newsletter and blog, and cover CI, marketing and general business management issues.
Our Help & Support pages are aimed at supplementing our CI Resources pages, which include a list of recommended web-sites for finding CI, and suggested books on CI and marketing for learning more.
Use our pages to help your competitive intelligence effort, and feel free to use the ideas you find here. Just do us the favour of saying where you found them or linking to us from your own web-site.
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Quick Tip
Quick Tip: Entrance
Robert Smith was devastated.
As the owner of a small retail business selling various groceries he had always recognised the threat posed by major supermarket chains such as Tesco, Walmart, Carrefour and the like. Now a branch of Tesco had opened next door, and business was tailing off.
He told all his friends how worried he was - and that things couldn't possibly be worse. And then a branch of Walmart opened on the other side. Robert now told friends that he expected to be out of business within the year.
His friends were really surprised when they met him a few months later - getting out of a top-range Mercedes wearing an expensive suit and with a big smile on his face.
We thought business was so bad that you were about to go bankrupt. What happened?
Robert replied: Well that is what I thought. And then I remembered that one secret to effective marketing is to make sure that your potential customers know where to find you. So I changed the name of my company. Come and look!"
Robert's friends followed him to his shop, sandwiched between Tesco and Walmart. Over the front, the new name was posted in big neon letters ENTRANCE
How do you promote your business? Can potential customers find you? Do your marketing promotions send people away, or invite them to come and buy. You need to ensure that all your marketing promotions allow customers to enter.
(For more marketing and business humour, visit our humour pages)
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Books - Co-opertition
Recommended Book
Co-opetition : 1. a revolutionary mindset that redefines competition and cooperation; 2. the game theory strategy that's changing the game of business
Adam M Brandenburger & Barry J Nalebuff
Buy UK £ or US$
Read our review of this book
Michael Porter described this book as "the most important single contribution" in taking his original ideas on ways of achieving competitive advantage forward. The book is easy to read, inexpensive and contains numerous ideas to help reshape and challenge thought processes. The writers develop Porter's 5 forces model, and introduce a sixth force. They emphasise the strategic advantages of co-operation and look at game theory as a way of approaching business strategy.
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For more recommendations visit our book selection.
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Public training
Competitive Intelligence Training
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SubscribeNews
AWARE's Newsletter
Subscribe to AWARE's newsletter giving news on AWARE, and advice and tips on competitive intelligence and marketing topics.
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Our services in competitive intelligence research, competitor analysis and CI training will help you integrate and use competitive and marketing intelligence in your business, strategic and marketing planning processes. Whether you need research, advice or training, our mission is to support our clients so that they achieve their growth objectives.
For the best UK & European competitive intelligence and competitor analysis services, contact us today.
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Copyright © AWARE 1995-2008
Last page / site update: Wednesday, December 10, 2008
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