Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Dirty tricks have always been a danger of test marketing, but with the availability of 
mini-test markets a new dimension has emerged. Their speed means that while a company 
is test marketing products over a matter of months, a competitor can buy supplies, put them 
through a mini-test market, find their market appeal and maybe experiment with alternative 
defensive strategies, all before the test-marketed product is launched fully.
A final means of gathering information is the use of double agents, either placed in a 
competitor’s company purposefully or recruited on to the payroll while still working for 
the competitor. One can easily imagine how invaluable such people could be over the long 
term. We know that such individuals are common within military espionage, although few 
examples have come to light in business circles.
5.4.1 Disseminating competitor intelligence
Intelligence itself is an essentially valueless commodity. It becomes valuable only when it 
reaches the right people within the organisation and is subsequently acted on. If no one is 
analysing, discussing and taking action on data collected, then it is a costly and unproductive 
exercise. Successful dissemination, however, requires two things. First, the destination must 
be clearly identified, and the question ‘who needs to know this?’ answered. Second, data 
must be presented in a manner that a recipient can understand and assimilate. Too many 
competitive intelligence reports, such as market research reports, are far too detailed and 
cumbersome for busy executives to extract and use the relevant information.
Bernhardt (1993) suggests the use of a hierarchical approach to dissemination. For senior 
management (including CEOs and strategy formulation groups), intelligence should be 
limited to that which is of high strategic value. There is little point burdening top managers 
with the minutiae of everyday operations. Indeed, too much operational detail in their menu 
of intelligence may mask the really important issues they need to act on.
Information to senior managers should include special intelligence briefings, typically 
one- or two-page reports, identifying and summarising specific issues and showing where 
more detailed information can be obtained. Senior managers may also require regular 
(monthly or quarterly, depending on the rate of change in the industry and market) intel-
ligence briefings, which address regularly occurring issues systematically so that trends can 
be identified and priorities made.

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