3 items tagged "product development"

  • Supporting Product Development with Competitive Intelligence  

    Supporting Product Development with Competitive Intelligence

    It's no secret that competitive research is a challenge for product teams who already have more than enough to do every day. But in order to develop successful products, it's important to keep track of who your competitors are, what they're doing and how they're doing it.

    Although it may sound daunting at first, this process doesn't have to be complicated, time-consuming or expensive to be well-worth your time. Just think about the amount of time and effort you put into developing and marketing a new product. By conducting consistent competitive research, you know before committing to a new product whether it has any market value as a differentiated offering. Given the opportunity to learn best practices and avoid making the same mistakes as your competitors, wouldn't you take it?

    Here are three tips on how to conduct competitive research for product development in just a few hours a week. 

    1. Automate Data Collection

    When it comes to online research, it's easy to get sucked down the rabbit hole only to come up with a few bits of useful information. Instead of wasting time on dead-end searches, find ways to automate as much of the data collection process as possible. You can do this with help from online tools that deliver curated competitive intelligence. There are also options to automate basic research tasks by creating simple algorithms using robotic process automation.

    In addition to automating research, there are also plenty of tools available that automate the delivery of competitive briefings and reports. Instead of manually sending out curated email briefings to executives and stakeholders, you can keep them in the loop on key competitor and market activities without any work required on your part.

    2. Source Intel from Everywhere

    In modern organizations, everyone can (and should) contribute to competitive research. Between the sales, marketing and account management teams alone you have access to a treasure trove of competitor and customer insights. Sales and marketing are always attending networking events, trade shows and conferences where they have access to competitors' employees and customers. Account managers and sales reps also receive direct feedback from prospects and customers every day.

    By actively funneling information from these sources on a consistent basis, you get the information you need without having to go out looking for it. The key to getting the most out of these sources is to save all of the information they share in a shared portal where your entire team can access it. This can be within competitor profiles in your CRM or a custom research portal where information is curated and archived.

    3. Measure & Optimize

    To ensure that your competitive intel is consistently delivering value for your organization, it's important to perform self-checks on your progress throughout each stage of the research cycle. Be sure that you and your team are using all resources available to them and aren't wasting time on unnecessary efforts. It's important to ask yourselves if these efforts are helping you gain better understanding of your core market and informing better product decisions. Ultimately, your competitive research and analysis needs to show you the differentiated advantage a product can offer customers in your target market, and help you deliver on it.

    The primary goal of conducting this kind of research is to serve your market with the best products and fuel business growth. If at any point you find that these efforts are creating more work than value, it's time to identify the weaknesses and improve your process to optimize results. 

    Source: CI Radar

  • The results are in: analytics lead to better product decisions

    The results are in: analytics lead to better product decisions

    You already know how infusing analytics into your daily apps and workflows has boosted performance and opened up insights to making smarter, better decisions. Now, product decision makers say they’ve found that providing data analytics to their customers enhances the value of their products. In a new Harris Poll study commissioned by Sisense, product decision makers overwhelmingly (93%) report that providing customized and personalized analytics to customers, at the point of decision, would give their organization an advantage over others in the industry.

    It’s clear to product decision makers that analytics offerings in products drive business value for their customers, as well as for their own businesses. In fact, 100% think that at least a segment of their customers are in need of better data and analytics. 75% say that most or all of their customers have this need. This represents an enormous opportunity for product decision makers to differentiate their products and services from the competition.

    Additionally, 80% of respondents even feel such offerings could allow them to charge up to nearly 20% more for their products and services because of the value of the insights that advanced analytics provides to customers and users.

    Digging Deeper: Key points About Infusing Analytics

    The best (and best-selling) apps and software solutions on the market have analytics and data features in some form. The ability to harness the robust insights provided by your data is what separates industry leaders from the rest of the pack. But far too often, these insights aren’t used in creative, strategic ways to drive growth. In fact, 38% of product decision makers believe their customers look at data and analytics monthly or less often.

    Taking a closer look, the analytics that product decision makers believe would be most useful to customers are prescriptive (56%) and predictive (what may happen in the future) (53%). More specifically, 81% of product decision makers feel if they could provide their customers with personalized and customized data and analytics, it should be embedded – including embedding in communication software/platforms (57%), in custom-built apps (55%) and in off-the-shelf business or SaaS apps (52%).

    An advanced analytics solution embedded into products and apps doesn’t just crunch complex data into easy-to-understand insights — it presents actionable intelligence to the right users at the right decision-making points in their workflows. This type of in-workflow enhancement opens up critical, actionable intelligence where, when, and how the user needs it. This empowers them to take action at the best time.

    Current Barriers to Analytics Success

    Lack of skill is not the issue here. Product decision makers are confident in their customers’ ability to use the data and analytics they receive to make decisions. Nearly three quarters (74%) say all/most of their customers are skilled in doing so. As a result, around 1 in 10 (11%) feel their customers simply do not have the data and analytics they need to make decisions to take appropriate actions.

    The deeper issue is that nearly all (92%) product decision makers currently deliver data and analytics to their customers via non-embedded methods. Specifically, 57% still deliver it by web portal/dashboards and 60% by email. Looking to the future, 81% of product decision makers say that if they could provide their customers with personalized data and analytics, it should be provided by embedding those into communication software or platforms, custom-built apps or off-the-shelf business or SaaS applications.

    In short, product decision makers have found that what drives growth in their companies will also help boost their customers’ operations.

    Author: Rachel Burstyn

    Source: Sisense

  • The use of competitive intelligence for five different business units explained

    The use of competitive intelligence for five different business units explained

    Getting the most out of your competitive intelligence system means investing the time and effort necessary to set-up and maintain your CI process. It also means effectively distributing the information you gain to decision makers throughout your company, some of whom may not even realize its potential value. Here are five key areas where your hard-earned competitive intelligence data can be put to good use:

    Executives

    Getting executives invested in competitive intelligence can be daunting for a number of reasons, but when it comes to making high-level, strategic planning, having good information to work with is key. Competitive intelligence is one several tools successful executives use to stay informed. Yet, some business leaders still rely on ad-hoc briefings and reports to keep them up to date.

    Reviewing industry trends and news may not be a high priority on a day-to-day basis, but you can still create an ongoing process that will keep them up to date and ensure that they’re ready to make the big decisions when they arise. This means created targeted briefings that include only the most vital information your CI team digs up. Competitor mergers and acquisitions, for example, can signal a potential shift in the competitive landscape, even if they don’t make front page news. Making sure your leadership team knows about possible industry-changing moves is a critical function of your CI process.

    Competitor documents can also offer insight into a business’s overarching goals and strategy. Investor presentations, sales decks, and financial reports provide different perspectives on how your competition presents itself to investors and potential customers. Compiling and distributing these resources in an organized, easy to digest format will go a long way towards ensuring executives are invested in your CI output.

    Sales

    Sales teams play a critical role in translating product development and marketing efforts into actual paying customers. Your sales people are on the front lines when it comes to presenting and defending your products. Perhaps more than any other department, they need up-to-date info about what other companies are offering. Sales meetings move quickly, and there’s rarely time for sales people to pause and research a competitor before reacting when another company comes up during a conversation with a potential customer. A good competitive intelligence process can compile that information in advance, allowing your sales team to build thoughtful, tactically advantageous responses that place you company in the best possible position.

    CI for sales can be translated into daily or weekly briefings, background research, or more interactive tools like sales battlecards. Competitive intelligence data can also bring to light potential customers by flagging failing competitors, unrenewed competitor contracts, and Requests For Proposal documents.

    Marketing

    Marketing is responsible for promoting and positioning your brand so that it stands out, no matter how saturated your industry space happens to be. Marketing teams benefit from competitive intelligence in a few ways. Knowing how and when your competitors advertise their products or services can give you insight into their strategy. To that end, tracking competitors on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram will give your marketing team an edge. Blog posts, product announcements, and other press releases can also be good sources of marketing information. Gathering this type of CI on a regular basis will give your team a complete, current picture of the competitive landscape, and allow them to spot trends and potential changes in the market before they affect business.

    Understanding how other companies market their products can also help you to refine your own brand and identify ways to distinguish it from the pack. One way to do so is by identifying content gaps, areas where your competitors aren’t providing the type or volume of content customers want. Identifying these gaps offers your business with an opportunity to generate content that is both distinct and in-demand, further differentiating your brand. Overall, your marketing team crafts your brand image, and their work can have an impact on potential customers long before they make contact with a sales person. It’s critical that your marketing efforts are backed by the best, most up-to-date information available on your competitors.

    Hiring and Training

    When most people think of competitive intelligence, they think about applying it to external challenges—generating sales, developing products, planning a marketing campaign, etc. While these are some of the most classic uses of CI, many companies have discovered the value of applying their hard-earned CI data in as many areas as possible. That means looking at processes that are normally handled “in-house” through a competitive lens.

    HR departments are using competitive intelligence data to track hiring and benefit trends across your industry. This ensures that your company stays competitive in terms of salary, benefits, and other “perks” that are increasingly in-demand among high-value employees. CI can also illuminate how your company is viewed by former, and potentially future, employees, by tracking sites like Glassdoor and TeamBlind. These forums offer anonymous employee feedback, so it is important to take individual posts with a grain of salt. However, if you notice a particular complaint or issue popping up across several posts, take it as an opportunity to address a potential source of talent-drain. Beyond hiring, onboarding teams often use competitive intelligence to acclimate new hires to the industry space and company culture. Background research on primary competitors, recent news, and product trends are all helpful, especially for employees who are new to your industry.

    Product Development

    Product development is all about staying ahead of the competition to provide the best, most advanced solutions on the market. When product developers achieve this goal, they make things easy for marketing and sales team. When they fail, they create an opportunity for competitors to siphon away current and potential customers with their superior offerings. All product teams need competitive intelligence in order to stay ahead of the latest trends and technological developments. Along with product announcements and advertisements, product teams can benefit from competitor documents like product brochures, solution overviews, manuals, user guides, and technical notes.

    Hiring trends are another potential indicator of competitors’ product roadmap. Tracking job postings over time can help you spot spikes in hiring that might correspond with new product developments—like a sudden hiring spree in a competitor’s engineering department. Beyond developing new products, competitive intelligence can give your product team a better understanding of how customers use and feel about your solutions. Reviews, industry sites, and social media discussions can all be tapped for insight. This gives your product team an opportunity to offer support and updates when a product or feature is struggling, and build on successful features in future releases.

    Source: CI Radar

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