Competitive Intelligence and Market Research in IT: How to Apply it in IT Companies and SaaS Startups

Competitive Intelligence and Market Research in ITHow to Apply it for IT Companies and SaaS startups

Corélia KostovicDigital Strategist, Market AnalystCleverToday

My surprise when coming to Québec

Competition is not really considered

Few data are available (sales, capital, etc)

Companies don’t really keep an eye on their own online reputation or comments

But IT companies in Quebec want to be more competitive...

1. Adopting a competitive and scalable tax environment2. Optimizing business processes and treatment of tax measures and tax credits3. Supporting distribution and export

http://www.aqt.ca/fr/laqt-presente-ses-recommandations-pour-que-les-entreprises-dici-cessent-detre-penalisees-face-leurs

“Recommandations for local companies to stop being penalized by their main Canadian and international competitors”

Indeed, nobody lives in a vacuum. Ever.

What is Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive Intelligence is not...

only about competitors only for big companies just a one-time study

Competitive Intelligence is a methodology

Competitive Intelligence is a mindset

Use all the information available around you

Sources

Human sourcesPublic

instituti.

Biz press

Internet, social media

Deep Web Patents

Source code

Share all you know with sales, dev, managers,...

Why is it so important in IT? (1/ 2)

Why is it so important in IT? (2/2)

STARTUPS

Convince investorsQuick responding competitors

LARGER COMPANIES

Anticipate market changeProspect M&A opportunities

Bigger competitors

Then, how about Market Research?

The best clue is THE USER

DEMAND USAGE TIMING

Market research techniques in IT

FOCUS GROUPS ONLINE SURVEY CONCEPT TESTING

QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT

LEAD USERS

PROTOTYPE TESTING

CUSTOMER VISIT EMPATHIC DESIGN

What often goes wrong with new techno?

Then, combine Competitive Intelligence and Market Research results

How do the others perform CI?

Amadeus IT Group and innovation analysis

How about us?

How we collect information for internal purposes

For the sales team:

● Strategic networking events● Who is making business with who (Agencies mandates)● Due diligence on serious prospects

For programmers:

● Key market indicators on a product, a competitor or a technology

How we decided not to invest the APM market

Monitoring solution prototype developed internally:

We did:

● Study the APM market● Select the right sources of information to get

trends (APM Digest)● Test competitors product and pricing● Read documentation

A special message to women

Merci :-)Corélia KOSTOVICDigital [email protected]