Competitive Intelligence: Moving in the Big Data Direction for Vendors, Finally.

If you'd asked me 5 years ago what I thought about the delivery of competitive intelligence, it would have been a short conversation. I'd recently left Cisco to set up TPC Global and had plans firmly set on delivering channel/distribution solutions to global tech clients. But, as SMBs we are in an advantageous position to pivot into opportunities as they present themselves, and in late 2016 this put us in the center of competitive intelligence design for the IT sector.

Fast-forwarding 4 years, and skipping over a lot of trial and error, big project distractions, cash flow and resource challenges, the rocky ride has given me a far deeper understanding of what competitive intelligence means to vendor organizations and the importance of it. I've also been able to step back and view the CI landscape, almost on their behalf, to help us determine market gaps, data gaps, opportunities and impossibilities.

However, one issue has remained throughout this time, and it's not distributors, or resellers or consumers, or anyone else in the channel, who have suffered the consequences of this problem. As is the case with many channel problems, it's vendors who bear the brunt of the issues, and with market data support, it's once again true.

The problem is this:

The level of granularity vendors needed to move from strategic purchases of market/competitive data to tactical plays. Meaning, linking ROI to, oft-times, expensive subscriptions, has to be justified as a CAPEX expensive not an OPEX spend; to get to OPEX vendors would need to prove the data supports them in an every day sense, linked to performance and shorter-term business goals, but as all project sponsors know, vendor-side, this is rarely possible with market intelligence.

It doesn't mean the purchasing power of vendors has been rescinded, but whereas the expectations previously were for strategic support, with the advent of a true digital age and a Big Data industry raising expectations to solve large-scale problems, the goalposts have moved for market data providers, and if you can't leverage data at scale, and fast, you will almost certainly see an erosion in revenue over the next couple of years.

But why is this a remaining problem, despite the plethora of technologies, data availability and a data science industry full of capable people with great solution mindsets?

In my opinion, fundamentally, there's nothing wrong. The data is there, the resource is there, the need is there, it's only the focus that's been wrong.

Vendors are complex and their needs are complex. Is this any different to other players in the channel? Probably not, but when it comes to market intelligence, and certainly competitive intelligence, complex is the right word. Their needs are manifest in the needs of distributors and resellers but it's the competitive benchmarking needs that sets them apart from the rest of the channel.

And therein lies the complexity. Find market data providers to give you consumer spend expectations in the US, broken down by industries and sectors and categories, they exist. Find market data providers to give you online product pricing analysis and even link it to your data, they exist too. But ask them to benchmark data and analysis vs your competitors and suddenly the conversation turns.

The simple fact is this - to benchmark any kind of performance or pricing between vendors you step into a world of specialized complexity that requires product or industry knowledge, and almost always both.

The one-size-fits-all approach to market data provisioning worked in the past because expectations had not been raised. Vendors need global scale, without ad-hoc market gaps.They need data relayed to them fast. And they need it packaged in direct comparison to their competitors - at a product level if everyone wants to link ROI. Oh, and you need a sufficient tool to deliver this intelligence through.

If you're trying to provide intelligence designed for resellers or distributors, and sell this to vendors, good luck - we're in 2020 and you're a Big Data company, whether you'd describe yourself as that or not - the industry has defined the term for you.

What do I mean by this? Well, up until recently, pricing intelligence providers counted most of their clients as resellers not vendors, and this defined the extent of the intelligence provided. Resellers don't really need vendor-focused product or pricing intelligence because their competitors are other resellers not other vendors. The needs between channel layers differ, and when you look for data and intelligence at scale, those needs expose intelligence gaps.

What are those differences (vendors vs resellers)?

Multi-country and Multi-region vs In-country

Vendor benchmarking vs (re)seller benchmarking

Sector/Category/Product hierarchies included vs provided

Proactive data-wrangling vs passive provisioning

High-end data-visualization vs API integration

What I've experienced in the development process with PriceMark is a move in expectations, especially in this last year. Previous to that, vendors felt the responsibility to purchase multiple datasets and tools from 3-5 providers and work on meshing it together themselves. But with internal CI/MI teams developing their knowledge, they've become wiser, and their needs have intensified AND diversified - and if you're going one-size-fits-all, diversification is a scary word.

But, although I could start to pitch PriceMark and say we solve problems beyond those of others for all the above reasons I'd be silly to do so, the vendor needs have become so great and diverse, it's specialist support that's required.

To me, there should be an acid test that vendor personnel should apply to considering their needs versus the data a third party can provide, which looks something like this for market pricing intelligence. You'll note, I do not include volume sales information - it's a regular ask, but to expect even a market intelligence company to have sales out/invoice data from vendor's customers is unreasonable - mainly due to 2 things - the sheer scale of agreements required to maintain industry-wide analysis, and anti-competitive rules:

1. Does your data extend to the product level? And for both our company and our key competitors?
2. Is the data benchmarked vs our competitors at the highest level of granularity - can I see my product availability in a specific location, vs my competitors at the the product level of detail?
3. Is it updated on a daily basis?
4. Is it up to date as of this week?
5. Does this come in the form of software we can access as opposed to data files being delivered?
6. Can I interact with the data in a way to support various teams within my company, so benefit can be broadly delivered?
7. Can the data be easily extracted - taken out of the tool to use in different types of testing on our side, or is the data only held within the tool?
8. If I wanted to integrate our data with your market data, is it possible and will you perform the integration?
9. Can the software/data support alert notifications so we can see changes and new information important to us, supporting different teams' needs, based on criteria we provide?

If these 9 questions aren't answered with a confident "Yes!" then they should be. The data you need exists.

Look up Crayon, QuickLizard or our very own PriceMark for different examples of modern MI/CI. We are a handful of a number of growing solution providers in the competitive intelligence space, and expect more and more to arrive as the diversified needs of vendors are solved for.

Ultimately, the Big Data world has finally arrived for vendors, but the application of solution provider's offerings need to combat the complexity vendors naturally exhibit.

Building a successful channel is not one-size-fits-all and nor should be the approach to vendor-focused competitive intelligence.

David Porter is the CEO of TPC Global, a 5 year old channel analytics business working regularly with Cisco Systems, HPE Aruba, Schneider Electric and VMware among others. Their PriceMark tool is designed for vendors, and has a number of USPs including cross-competitor product matching and an extensive database collating 500,000 pricing and performance details each day.

Reach out to David via [email protected] or here on LinkedIn.