Twelve questions you can use to determine where
your business stands.
Dave Tyrrell, Vertex Intellectual Property Strategies Inc.
Market knowledge and competitive intelligence is a key ingredient to the success of any business. As can be seen on the Vertex Technology Commercialization Roadmap, input from market research is required at many stages of the Idea Creation - Technology Development - IP Protection - Exploitation cycle. This questionnaire is designed to help you understand how well your business is addressing this important element.
- Do you know your competitors and do you have up-to-date
profiles of them?
- Do you analyze your competitors' actions and plans?
- Are you up-to-date with emerging technologies in
the field of your business and the features and benefits of these technologies?
- Are your employees aware of the benefits of business
intelligence and market knowledge, and do they regularly report information
relating to emerging technologies and competitors to management?
- Do you train your staff to continually gather and
report information from your customers relating to their problems, product
and service needs, and industry trends?
- Does your management team maintain a network of
external industry contacts to help them gather and interpret business
intelligence information?
- Is your business cognizant of new and pending government
legislation and legislative trends that would impact your business?
- Before launching a new product, do you carry out
formal market research and reviews to address issues such as competitiveness,
market size, price points and barriers to entry of a competitor?
- Do you validate key competitive information with
two or three independent sources before making significant business decisions?
- Do you develop quarterly and annual trade show,
conference and industry meeting attendance plans that include the detailing
of your business intelligence and information needs?
- Have you established a proprietary information
protection plan to safeguard your company's private information and has
your business clearly outlined its expectations in this regard to its
employees?
- Do you inform your employees regularly about the legal aspects of obtaining market intelligence information and provide them with ethical guidelines with respect to gathering such information?
How many of the above questions did you answer with YES?
|
You probably haven't
missed much. Keep up the good work. Lot's of room for improvement. Take your head out of the sand. Problems are likely. |
