Our Capabilities
Competitive Intelligence
What is competitive intelligence?
Competitive Intelligence (CI) draws on a variety of disciplines and sources of information. The goal is to enable you to better understand your competitor’s activities and predict their likely course of action. This helps you become more effective in developing and executing strategies to insure success in the market.
How do we do this? We have a number of different methods utilizing primary and secondary sources of information. Anyone can look up raw data on the internet. Where we excel is in looking behind the public information to find what’s beneath the surface, filling in the gaps and providing actionable intelligence.
There are a number of ways CI can benefit your organization:
- Competitor Intelligence — understanding your competition’s direction, strategy and tactics, helping you know your competition better
- Win/Loss Analysis — analyzing why you’re getting and losing customers
- Customer Intelligence — developing analysis of what drives a client’s buying decisions and the strength of the relationship
- Strategic Analysis and Benchmarking — learning how you compare to your competition in the marketplace; understanding your relative strengths and weaknesses
- Trade Show Intelligence — developing information on the competition by attending trade shows, engaging with both the competition directly and with customers
- New Product/Market Analysis — learning what new products will be entering the market, and helping you learn the potential for successful introduction of your products
- Sales/Marketing Intelligence — gathering and organizing information you may already have in-house through your own personnel, and developing a mechanism to monitor and act on the data.
Case Studies
Client
Our client was a firm specializing in the recycling of various hazardous chemicals commonly used in a variety of industries.
Assignment
We were commissioned to perform a study of certain competitors in specific markets in a highly competitive business segment. The competitors were generally small and privately held, making it exceedingly difficult to develop information on them.
Solution
Using primary and secondary sources, we were able to develop detailed profiles of the competition, including information such as: annual sales, cost of goods sold, vendors, customers, pricing strategies, compensation plans, expansion plans, and go to market strategies. This enabled our client to compete more effectively in that market segment.
Client
Our client was a firm that was entering new local markets by acquisition of existing firms.
Assignment
We were tasked to evaluate the relationships the acquisition target had with critical clients within a short time frame prior to deal closing.
Solution
We were able to confirm not only the size of the client relationships, but also able to establish that the acquisition target was the vendor of choice for this service. No other vendors were used unless the customer was doing business outside their service area. In addition, we were able to locate an additional large client that hadn’t been disclosed, who was equally pleased with the vendor. In addition, we were able to identify employees of the target who were key to retaining customer accounts. This has developed into an ongoing project where we are brought in on a regular basis with potential acquisitions.
Client
Environmental Services Provider.
Issue
One of the Client’s competitors was in violation of environmental regulations. This enabled them to undercut the Client while damaging the environment.
Assignment: Develop the necessary proof to enable an approach to regulatory agencies
Solution
Epoch provided government agencies with evidence of the competitor’s wrong doing. The evidence was of a sufficient standard to enable those agencies to proceed against the competitor, forcing him to act within the law and thus to compete fairly with the client.
Client
A manufacturer of specialized production equipment.
Assignment
A senior employee had left to form a new business that rapidly became successful by supplying customers with products and services very similar to those provided by the client.
Solution
Epoch was able to demonstrate that the competitor was using intellectual property stolen from the client and provide sufficient evidence for the client to initiate legal action.
Client
A major provider of environmental services.
Assignment
A new competitor had entered the market. The client had no previous experience with and little knowledge of this firm, so needed information on which to base a competitive strategy.
Results
Epoch provided a complete report on the competitor, including: number of trucks, branch locations, supplier costs, and biographies of key employees. This enabled our client to better understand the competitor and develop a more effective strategy.
Client
Major international engineering design consultancy
Assignment
The client was concerned that in one particular region their competitor’s speed of response was remarkably swift. The client was concerned that the competitor may have gained illicit access to the client’s proprietary information.
Results
Epoch gained covert access to the client’s information at this regional office. Within less than a week we had obtained a complete set of the client’s engineering drawings for a major current project and were able to provide the client with a detailed analysis of the shortcomings in their security.
Epoch Insights is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
