4 Tips for Keeping your Head out of the Sand

This morning I came across a stellar article in the October 2014 edition of Harvard Business Review. The article was titled – Putting Sales at the Center of Strategy, and the killer quote was the following. “Strategists, years removed from customer contact…have an obsolete vision of the company-customer interface.” That killer quote has a lot to say about how competitive intelligence, market research, marketing, and product development teams need to operate in a Fortune 500 environment. Competitive Intelligence Sales team members are actually talking to customers – each and every day. Given this they may be the first person in your company to hear about a disruptive competitor – even if the sales team’s first move is to dismiss the disruptor. Sales teams are also able to discern how competitors (long standing and upstarts) are impacting customers – as a direct reflection of the sales team’s ability (or inability) to sell against these competitors. So make sure you have a set of solid contacts you can reach out to in the sales org and incorporate their insights about customers, competitors, and market disruptors. Market Research Given market research teams tend to focus on research efforts that target current customers, market research teams should marry their typical efforts with sales driven insights. In other words, market research thyself. Doing this allows you to inject a bit of the Voice of the Competitor (VOTC) into each and every study that you do. Marketing Many articles have been written over the years about the “marketing-sales interface.” Not always in the most complimentary terms. Hence, this area is well covered in terms of articles, books, and essays about how you can bridge the gulf between marketing and sales. Even so it’s worth a reminder. Sales leaders and individual team members can help you build “data-driven” ...
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Why CI Professionals Need to Know Web Analytics: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 74: – Why you need to know Web Analytics – Tips and Tricks for Competitive Intelligence Professionals During this podcast we cover a variety of reasons why Competitive Intelligence professionals need to regulary mine web analytics. This includes: Why tools such as SimilarWeb are solid sources for competitive intelligence. How you can you use web metrics to identify disruptive companies before it’s too late. Why web analytics are sometimes overlooked as a source of competitive and market intelligence. How to be more effective when mining web metrics. For more free B2B tech market research and competitive intelligence resources go to: www.cascadeinsights.com/resources Sign up for podcast updates – here.
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6 Essential Truths of Competitive Intelligence Collection and Analysis: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 73: – 6 Essential Truths of Competitive Intelligence Collection and Analysis During this podcast we cover the six essential truths of competitive intelligence collection and analysis: What someone thinks about the competitive intelligence collection and analysis effort is going to deeply impact how they go about conducting the effort. Intelligence failures do not come from a failure to connect A to B to C but from a failure to look at underlying trends, forces, and assumptions. Good analysis makes the complex comprehensible which is not the same thing as simple. There is no substitute for knowing the domain, industry, etc. that you are doing analysis on. Intelligence starts when we stop reporting on events and start explaining them. Managers of intelligence teams get the behavior they reward – reward explanation over simple reportage. Thank you for listening to this episode! If you enjoyed it, please feel free to share it using the social media buttons on this page. We would also be VERY grateful if you could rate, review, or subscribe to the B2B Market Research podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn. Modified Transcript: Welcome to another episode of the B2B Market Research podcast. In this podcast episode, we’re going to actually return briefly to an article we mentioned a few podcast episodes ago. We’re going to talk this time about the six essential truths of competitive intelligence and intelligence work. Before we do that, I want to talk about a few brief programming notes. First, if you want to find past episodes of this podcast, you can do that on iTunes, on Stitcher Radio, on TuneIn and you can also find them on our site at CascadeInsights.com/resources where you’ll also find some of our e-books, our blog posts and some other resources that we’ve made available in terms of free training and the ...
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Making Social Media Analysis Easy with NodeXL: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 72: – Making Social Media analysis easy with NodeXL During this podcast we interview Marc Smith one of the creators of NodeXL.  NodeXL is a free and fantastic tool for doing advanced social media analysis – right inside of Excel. We cover the following with Marc, all of which should be of solid interest to any software company interested in doing advanced social media analysis as part of their competitive intelligence, market intelligence, or market research efforts. Why NodeXL was created in the first place. The importance of social media research today. What NodeXL can do for social media researchers. The other tools that Marc recommends for social media analysis. For more free B2B Market Research and competitive intelligence resources go to: www.cascadeinsights.com/resources Sign up for podcast updates – here
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5 Tips for Making Battle Ready Battle Cards

How many “Battle Cards” does your company make?  I’m going to go out on a limb and guess “a lot.”  In fact, there’s probably a group of good people who’ve become a “deliverable factory” in this regard – churning out Battle Cards with wild abandon. But really, ask yourself, “Are Battle Cards effective?”  In 2000, sure.  In 2014?  Not so much. Why has the Battle Card lost its luster?   Why can’t we just put on a fresh coat of Turtle Wax and make things new again? Simply because the sales process itself has changed. Customers are armed with more info than sellers – on a regular basis.  Michael Porter talked about this over 30 years ago when he used Five Forces analysis to explain the circumstances under which power shifts to the buyer.  In short, he stated that if buyers have access to “full information” about what they are buying, power accrues in their favor.  This is exactly what we are seeing today, in nearly every industry, not just technology-oriented ones.  Buyers have access to analysts, reviews, and online communities of customers.  Industry peers are at their fingertips on social networks. The mud that you and the competitor are going to sling in your opposing Battle Cards?  They probably already saw that in their first 30 minutes of Googling. Hence, simply providing a doc full of features and FUD probably isn’t going to get it done anymore. Battle Cards need to change. So what should you do?  Instead of churning out Battle Cards and Pain Points, make sure your sellers can fully understand the Voice of the Competitor (VOTC). Here are five ways that listening to the Voice of the Competitor (VOTC) can make your next Battle Card battle ready: Understand why rational customers buy from a competitor – gets ...
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How to Do Win-Loss the Right Way: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 71: – How to do Win-Loss the Right way. How to get a complete picture of what’s going on out there, and how to avoid isolating on any single deal. The importance of looking at the entire sales process and not just isolating on things such as rep behavior and price. For more episodes focused on competitive intelligence and market intelligence tips go to: www.cascadeinsights.com/resources Sign up for podcast updates – here
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What you need to see on Slideshare – August 2014 Edition

These are the top Business or Technology focused presentations you need to see on slideshare this month. This month we focus on the Mobile market and Social Media. Subscribe to our blog to get the latest B2B Market Research information for software, hardware and technology companies. Note: Our emphasis here is on content and meaningful data over style… Playing with Fire – Amazon’s Phone US Mobile Market is the Growth Over 40 scary stats about data at risk The next list R&D breakthroughs that are changing the world How does Apple make so much money? Things Programmers Know – That Other People Don’t The economic outlook for 2014 to 2014 in 15 slides (Congressional Budget Office) Why do people share on social media? – Global Survey Results
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How to Use Web Data the Right Way – 3 Tips For Success: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 70: – How to use web data the right way – 3 tips for success How to treat data sources such as LinkedIn and Job Postings as a database first and a website second. The importance of developing a good taxonomy before you begin any search efforts. Why API’s matter when it comes to grabbing lots of data. For more episodes focused on B2B tech competitive intelligence and market intelligence tips go to: www.cascadeinsights.com/resources Sign up for podcast updates – here
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That’s Why I Bought It….The Art of Effective Feature Comparison

When a business buys a license for a piece on-premise software or a cloud service they may have a number of different reasons for making that purchase decision. But only a few truly matter. Sadly, many marketing, sales, and product engineering teams don’t take a “features that matter” approach to this type of competitive analysis.  In fact they start with what I call the phone book approach.  They start with feature A and move all the way through to feature Z.  All the while trying to determine whether one feature was more or less important than any other. But this isn’t how customers decide. Customers do look at features of course.  And they may list many features as “requirements” in RFP’s that they put out to technology vendors.  But in the final analysis, only a few truly matter. RFP Features These are the features you’ll find in the RFP that customers put out to potential vendors. Somewhere around 50% of the features asked for in a given RFP will be implemented in the first 12 months that the customer has the solution in place. The remaining 50% may be implemented later or never implemented at all. Features That Matter These are the features the customer is still using 6 months to 12 months post deployment. These are the features that they have come to rely on, the features that have increased the productivity of the organization in some measurable way, etc. The important thing to keep in mind is this.  When competing, you’re competing against the features that matter.  You aren’t competing against all the features the competitor mentions on their website, nor are you competing against all the features that customers say they desired in an RFP. Check Out: Past episodes of our popular podcast – The B2B Market Research Podcast. Download: ...
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Best Technology or Business Focused Slideshare Presentations for July 2014

The following is our take on the best Slideshare presentations of the last 30 days.  With a focus on presentations that cover the technology industry or business all up. Note: Our emphasis here is on content and meaningful data over style… The Brazil Startup Report How Netflix delivers software Wireless Industry Overview – 2014 State of Bitcoin Q2 2014 Future of Cloud Computing – 8th Annual Survey iOS 8 – What you need to know Treat your API like a product Fundamental ways we use data visualizations Check Out: Past episodes of our popular podcast – The B2B Market Research Podcast. Download: Going Beyond Google – Gathering Intelligence – 5th Edition – Over 100+ pages of tools, tips, and techniques for CI professionals.
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5 Fundamental Truths of Competitive Intelligence Collection and Analysis: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 69: – 5 Fundamental Truths of Competitive Intelligence Collection and Analysis During this podcast we cover Five “Fundamental Truths” from one of the best articles ever written on intelligence collection and analysis efforts. During this podcast we cover: Why the written product is forever. How the public segregates success and failure. How to build credibility – the “equity meter” – over time. The level of sophistication of your typical competitive intelligence “customer” in an organization. When product output is “optional.” For more episodes focused on B2B tech competitive intelligence and market research tips go to: www.cascadeinsights.com/resources Sign up to the B2B Market Research newsletter for the latest podcasts, blog posts and CI news. Modified Transcript: Welcome to another episode of the Competitive Intel podcast. In this podcast, we’re going to talk about what I consider to be one of the best documents you can read about doing effective competitive analysis. That actually comes from, literally, the Central Intelligence Agency’s Public Center for Intelligence Studies. We’ll talk about that in a minute. But first, a couple of brief programming notes. If you want to find past episodes of this podcast, you can find them on our site, on iTunes, or on certain podcast repositories like Stitcher Radio. Also, if you’d like to learn more about the podcast or if you’re interested in suggesting a topic for the future podcast, feel free to send me an email at sean@cascadeinsights.com. With that, I want to talk about what I find to be one of the most interesting documents that you can read out of anything that’s ever been written about CI. The document is entitled “What I Learned in 40 Years of Doing Intelligence Analysis for US Foreign Policymakers.” If you’re instantly thinking, well, I’m not in public sector, this has no relevance, keep in mind ...
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40 Years of Competitive Intelligence Expertise – Distilled…

This presentation summarizes the key takeaways from one of the best articles we’ve ever come across on competitive intelligence collection, analysis, and the building of competitive intelligence teams. While the article focuses on public sector experiences, the five fundamental truths, and six essential truths the article covers are an important read for competitive intelligence professionals in every industry. Check Out: Past episodes of our popular podcast – The B2B Market Research Podcast. Download: Going Beyond Google – Gathering Intelligence – 5th Edition – Over 100+ pages of tools, tips, and techniques for CI professionals.
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The Ugly – Technology Companies and Competitive Intelligence: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 68: – Technology Companies and Competitive Intelligence – The Ugly During this podcast we cover: The Ugly – What Technology Companies typically get wrong when building Competitive Intelligence teams and generating analysis. Subscribe to the monthly B2B Market Research newsletter for the latest CI information. Modified Transcript: Welcome to another episode of the B2B Market Research podcast. In this podcast we’re going to extend on the topic we talked about last time where we talked about the good and the bad when it comes to CI teams in B2B tech companies. In essence, what do they tend to do well and what tends to be problematic for them? Now we’re going to talk about the things that are truly ugly, the things that are really systemic problems that almost every CI team in tech seems to face. Before we get into that, though, a couple brief programming notes. First, if you want to find past episodes of this podcast you can find them on our site, on iTunes, or on other podcast repositories like Stitcher Radio. If you have any questions about the podcast or if you just would like to suggest a topic for a future podcast, feel free to send me an email at sean@cascadeinsights.com. With that, let’s get into the topic. Previously we talked about the good and the bad in tech CI. A little bit of context here: The comments I’m making come from interacting with different types of very large tech companies (very large meaning predominantly Fortune 500, with a smattering down to the Fortune 1000 level.) These are complex organizations with usually inherently complex market intelligence and competitive intelligence functions. What I want to highlight here are systemic and constant problems that I see across organizations and talk a little bit about the impact of ...
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Going Beyond Google: How B2B Marketers Can Gather Better Intelligence In A Big Data World – As Delivered to the Northern California Business Marketing Association – July 25th, 2014

Discover how B2B marketers can gain better competitive intelligence information via big data. Below is the presentation Sean delivered at the Norcal BMA event this week. If you would like to download a copy of the presentation go here. Check Out: Past episodes of our popular podcast – The B2B Market Research Podcast.
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The Good and the Bad – B2B Technology Companies and Competitive Intelligence: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 67: – B2B Technology Companies and Competitive Intelligence – The Good and the Bad During this podcast we cover: The Good – What Technology Companies typically get right when it comes to Competitive Intelligence efforts. The Bad – What Technology Companies typically get wrong when it comes to Competitive Intelligence efforts. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest B2B technology market research and competitive intelligence information. Modified Transcript: Welcome to another episode of the Competitive Intel Podcast. In this podcast we’re going to talk about a subject that I’ve been asked about a fair amount over the last few years. What have I seen in terms of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the way that CI teams in tech companies seem to operate? Obviously I’m going to generalize here. I’m not going to point to any particular organization. But, I will give you some trends that I’ve seen and I’ll actually do this over a couple different podcasts over the upcoming next few months. We’ll just hit a couple highlights in this podcast. Before I get into that I want to talk about a few brief programming notes. One, if you want to find past episodes of this podcast series you can do so on iTunes or on our site. Also, if you’d like to suggest a topic for the podcast or if you just have questions about the podcast, feel free to send me an email at sean@cascadeinsights.com. With that, let me get into the topic for today. One of the first things to realize about competitive intelligence is it varies quite a bit based on the industry that you tend to find yourself in. This is somewhat obvious but the differences sometimes are quite stark. If I talk to a CI team in an oil and ...
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Cloudera – Customer and Partner Viewpoints

The Customer and Partner ViewPoint – Cloudera   Cloudera is respected as the 1st to market solution (i.e., unquestioned market leader status) and is well respected for “giving back” to the Hadoop community.  However, there’s no monopoly in the Hadoop market at this time, and customers that we spoke with are commonly kicking the tires with multiple Hadoop vendors. Cloudera benefits from having Hadoop royalty, such as Doug Cutting, on staff.  However Cloudera is seen as a risky bet as it requires large enterprises to bet on a relatively small company.  Cloudera clearly hopes that recent investment from Intel extends a Fortune 500 halo over the company. Cloudera used to be able to justify their price, as they were orders of magnitude cheaper than solutions like Teradata, but now people are questioning the cost of Cloudera with cheaper market alternatives like Hortonworks. Customers like the stack overall (Manager, Impala, connectors/APIs) Customers report Cloudera support is responsive and their documentation is solid, but some say the company can be quite immature in how it tackles large enterprise sales. Backgrounder:  Each blog post in our Customer ViewPoints series highlights what customers and partners of technology companies think about the offerings that these companies provide. Each post provides a summarized view of commentary about the solution, based on our direct interactions with these customers.   For more about how we go about this type of research visit – http://www.cascadeinsights.com/voiceofthecompetitor. – June 4th, 2014
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TweetBinder is a solid TweetReach replacement

For quite a while now we’ve turned to TweetReach to generate quick statistics (volume, tweets per day referencing the hashtag, etc.) on Twitter hashtags. However, it looks like I might be turning to TweetBinder a bit more often as it provides similar statistics along with a few additional data points such as the following: “Cloudera” report.
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Mary Meeker’s – Internet Trends – 2014 – The Highlights

Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends report has become a “must read” every year for folks in the tech industry. While no single report can cover every angle, especially on a area as big as “Internet Trends,” this report consistently does it better than most. KPCB Internet trends 2014 from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Some highlights: Post iPhone – 97% of Smartphone OS’s are “made” in the US, pre the iPhone the percentage was 5% 66% of Tablet owners are surfing the web while watching TV +95% of networks are already compromised in some way Vulnerable placed on the Internet are now compromised in less than 15 minutes “We’re entering the age of apps as service layers” 47% of online transactions use “free” shipping 9 of the top 10 global internet properties are based in the US with 79% of the users coming from outside of the US “Re-imaging Industry Verticals…Internet Trifecta = Content + Community + Commerce” “Apps replacing Channels”
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Interview With Scott Brown, Qualcomm: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 66: – Interview – Scott Brown – Qualcomm During this podcast we discuss: How a corporate librarian views competitive intelligence as a discipline. The SLA’s CI division. How effective analysis relates to data collection. “Information Obesity” and how to avoid it. For additional resources focused on B2B tech market research and competitive intelligence go to: www.cascadeinsights.com/resources Sign up for podcast updates – here
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Slideshare Presentation – Voice of the Competitor

During this presentation you’ll learn more about Voice of the Competitor (VOTC) research. First what it is, then how it compares with Voice of the Customer (VOC) research, and lastly how you can incorporate Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and Human Intelligence (HUMINT) into VOTC efforts.   Voice of the Competitor (VOTC) – Research and Analysis from Cascade Insights
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Tradeshow Tip – Knowing when it’s time to Go – And finding the Center Mass

Given we do a fair amount of trade show intelligence work, and I deliver a fair number of conference presentations at competitive intel, market research, and other conferences, I just thought I would share an observation about how people typically approach a conference. — In short, know when it’s time to show up and it’s time to go. Too many people lock themselves in for the pre-day, the post-day events, and sometimes show up 1 or 2 days early for a reasons only known to them. Whether it’s a trade show intelligence project or a conference you’re attending, take a close look at the schedule and find the Center Mass. What the Center Mass is of course is going to be unique to your objectives.  Whether that’s a set of Key Intelligence Questions or a set of business needs. Keep in mind you don’t get extra credit for staying longer. So next time you book travel for a show, think long and hard about what Center Mass for that show means to you.  It might mean you show up for the pre-con and one day of exhibit hall activities.  It might mean you focus on the session and ditch the pre-con.  It might mean you stay for all of it. But whatever you do don’t just look at the conference dates and open up your favorite airline website right after that. Look for the Center Mass first.  You’ll get more done in less time, and be back in the office before you know it.
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Framework Fight Club Workshop – Recap – SCIP 2014 – Conference

Yesterday I delivered the all-day version of our Framework Fight Club workshop to a packed room at the SCIP 2014 conference in Orlando. After delivering the workshop an attendee asked if I could summarize some of the books that were addressed at various points during the workshop. Here is the list: Innovator’s Dilemma  Crossing the Chasm Profiting from Uncertainty  Business Model Generation Blue Ocean Strategies Understanding Michael Porter Competitive Advantage Big Bang Disruptions I also mentioned our two eBooks – Going Beyond Google: Gathering Intelligence – 5th edition, and Voice of the Competitor.
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Why Investigative Recruit Matters: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 65: – Investigative Recruit – Why it Matters During this podcast we cover: The key elements of investigative recruit. How investigative recruit differs from traditional market research approaches to recruit. Why investigative recruit is an essential part of any competitive intelligence effort. For additional resources focused on B2B market research and competitive intelligence, go to: www.cascadeinsights.com/resources Sign up for podcast updates – here
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More Fabulous Frameworks – Webinar – Slides & Recording

During the “More” Fabulous Frameworks webinar we covered: PARTS (#1) analysis from Co-opetition The use of the ERRC (#2) grid from Blue Ocean Strategy (#3) Adoption Chain and (#4) Co-Innovation Analysis from the Wide Lens (#5) Shark Fin Analysis from Big Bang Disruptions Download the presentation or the recording.
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Is That Project Executable: B2B Market Research podcast

Episode 64: – Is that Project Executable? During this podcast we cover: What it means to have an executable project. Ways to know if your project is executable or not. How CI differs from traditional market research in regards to the above. For more resources focused on B2B market research and competitive intelligence tips go to: www.cascadeinsights.com/resources Sign up for podcast updates – here
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Crossing the Chasm – The Remix

The best ideas stand the test of time.  And clearly the ideas offered by Geoffrey Moore in his book Crossing the Chasm have achieved that distinction. I was reminded of this, when one of our employees forwarded me an article that Geoffrey had shared on LinkedIn about the 3rd edition of Crossing the Chasm.   That post led me to a series of detailed posts that he shared recently – all of which are focused on the newly updated version of Crossing the Chasm. What follows are some points that are worth re-quoting in some detail: What’s New? Consumer IT The Four Gears Model for consumer focused tech (vs. B2B) – Acquire, Engage, Convert, Enlist Cloud Computing, which inherently shrinks the size of the chasm between Early Adopters and Pragmatists. Business Models that are driven by Consumption Economics Distribution Partners who have less impact than they once had – given the web provides a universal delivery model. What hasn’t changed about Crossing the Chasm: The Technology Adoption Lifecycle The need to offer a Whole Product Business Ecosystems Word of Mouth (Digital or Otherwise) References and their Impact on Pragmatists The Chasm Pragmatists in Pain and the Associated Beachhead Strategy that’s needed to reach them. More detail on the posts can be found on LinkedIn, here and here.
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New Tools for Human Intelligence Recruit

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” – Thomas Huxley When it comes to learning something about everything, we think that it is important to identify resources that can help competitive intelligence professionals do their job more effectively, outside of the classic resources that people might turn to on a regular basis. One of those items in the “something about everything” category is Sourcecon.QA. Sourcecon.QA is aligned with the very popular SourceCon site.  Sourcecon.QA, while new, already has a number of sites, tools, and tips offered by sourcing professionals.  Importantly, many of these same tools can be used to help accelerate the recruiting efforts that are at the forefront of most human intelligence collection efforts focused on competitor customers, partners, etc. Take a look, I’m sure you’ll find a fair amount of value there, not just now, but over time as well.      
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Understanding – Voice of the Competitor (VOTC) – Research – Webinar – Slides – Recording

We recently delivered a webinar focused on understanding Voice of the Competitor (VOTC) research. During this webinar we covered how: VOTC differs from VOC research Techniques you can use to gather and analyze “competitor voice” Ways in which VOTC differs from traditional win / loss studies How you can get started doing VOTC research Download the Presentation or View the Recording
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