Comments on: Found in the Translation http://blog.jthawes.com/2009/07/20/found-in-the-translation/ Helping Smart People Think Clearly About Strategy Fri, 27 May 2011 09:41:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jason Katraouzos http://blog.jthawes.com/2009/07/20/found-in-the-translation/comment-page-1/#comment-57 Jason Katraouzos Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:25:06 +0000 http://tomhawes.wordpress.com/?p=367#comment-57 That was a great blog entry Tom and it correlates well with my CI experience. About 5 years ago I started constructing timelines of competitor actions so I could review the entire chain of industry events over time. I now partially use it to gauge competitor culture and make predictions. For instance, how aggressive was Competitor X in the market in the past 3 years, and why hadn't Competitor Y introduced a new product in 10 years? Looking at timelines helped me see competitor culture to some extent. Competitor X is an aggressive company from New York that likes dominating the market through frequent marketing and product introductions. Competitor Y is a strong risk manager that uses its conservatism to avoid bad risks and survive over the long-term with strong financial strength fueled by other product lines. These insights help determine how aggressive we're willing to be in directly competing with these companies. As you mentioned too, knowing the key people who are involved in determining the competitors' business strategy is beneficial. It's interesting that you can't easily know that sometimes. Many of the key personnel for my company's competitors don't even have a Linkedin account or post much info on the Internet. Industry conferences have helped with that to some extent. Observing the body language and having private conservations with them can be invaluable. Jason That was a great blog entry Tom and it correlates well with my CI experience. About 5 years ago I started constructing timelines of competitor actions so I could review the entire chain of industry events over time. I now partially use it to gauge competitor culture and make predictions. For instance, how aggressive was Competitor X in the market in the past 3 years, and why hadn’t Competitor Y introduced a new product in 10 years? Looking at timelines helped me see competitor culture to some extent. Competitor X is an aggressive company from New York that likes dominating the market through frequent marketing and product introductions. Competitor Y is a strong risk manager that uses its conservatism to avoid bad risks and survive over the long-term with strong financial strength fueled by other product lines. These insights help determine how aggressive we’re willing to be in directly competing with these companies.

As you mentioned too, knowing the key people who are involved in determining the competitors’ business strategy is beneficial. It’s interesting that you can’t easily know that sometimes. Many of the key personnel for my company’s competitors don’t even have a Linkedin account or post much info on the Internet. Industry conferences have helped with that to some extent. Observing the body language and having private conservations with them can be invaluable.

Jason

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