[/caption]A client commented wryly the other day that the Web as an informational resource is a mixed blessing. Like many other technologies, light-speed access to information has accelerated the pace of business and, much like the evolution from from courier to FedEx to fax to email and beyond, has created higher expectations all around. Ready access to information has made thorough competitive research easier... in fact, it has also made it imperative. This is how a new opportunity transforms into a baseline expectation. Everyone has the same opportunity and so doing business becomes more demanding than it was in more blissfully ignorant times.
Twenty six long years ago, when van Schouwen Associates opened its doors, competitive research (especially for smaller to mid-sized client firms whose budgets had their limits!) was typically a drawn-out and inefficient affair, depending variously on resources such as customers with opinions, loose-lipped sales reps and slyly procured sales literature and price lists. Information was often scanty and in some cases dated or seriously imprecise. But oddly, life was easier because the bar was set lower. We didn't intend that; we weren't lazy. It was just the way things worked.
The challenge today is that, with the exception of not-yet-released products that have been developed with dedicated attention to secrecy, it is possible to find out a great deal about other peoples' products and services, marketing messages, pricing, and the strengths and weaknesses of any competitor's offerings. It is often easy to reverse-engineer technical products. Why? In part because it's all on the Web.
Well, nearly all of "it" is on the Web. A frequent discussion the van Schouwen Associates team has with its clients involves what to include and what not to include in that very public forum. There are several layers of potential privacy clients can employ, including:
No privacy: Placing material out in the public arena online
Moderate privacy with potential for leakage: Offering material protected by passwords (often permission-based passwords with expiration dates and renewal requirements)... plus additional layers of security
Higher privacy but not perfectly secure, just ask Congress how leaks happen: Material that isn't put online anywhere, period.
Today, companies typically have (or should have) vast information about their competitors and their market opportunities. This is excellent.
Vast knowledge (or access to same) has also made business all the more challenging even as it presents clear new opportunities.
At vSA, we (and of course, our clients) know – more than ever before – exactly how high the bar has been set. So does anyone else who cares to look.
Result 1: Increasingly, products developed with insufficient regard to what is already on the market FAIL where once they might have succeeded. Less competitive services do the same because the customer's process of finding a better deal – the best deal – is pretty easy. Just Google and go.
Result 2: We expect that this universal access to competitive information will continue to yield impressive improvement in business innovation. Innovators and marketers have to work harder... and harder... and smarter.
At work... are you agonizing about reduced sales, lowered projections and the future in general? Fair enough; you're not alone. At vSA, we regard this era as the right time to make sure we (our clients and ourselves) are ready for whatever comes next for this economy.