Competitor Research Plan

(Basic Draft)

I. Rationale

A. Introduction

The company is moving towards “deliberative selling” as its lynchpin sales strategy. This
strategy is dependent on the company’s ability in offering varied and creative solutions to
clients. The company thus needs to invest on ways to boost its capability to innovate.
Gathering information about its leading competitors will enable the company not only to
benchmark itself against what the competition is offering but also help it identify starting points
from which innovation and new ideas can grow.

B. Research Objective

To identify and gather data on competitor products that the company can study and get insights
from which can potentially lead to new ideas and products.

C. Hypothesis

Useful and profitable innovation can be gathered from studying the products being offered by
leading competitors.

D. Objectives

1. To come up with an inventory of products being offered by leading competitors.

2. To create a knowledge pool on competitor approaches.
3. To gain insights into how the leading competitors think.

II. Current Studies Made

The current knowledge base that we have, to the best of the group's knowledge, is a 5-year old
competitor scan that focuses mainly on company and client profiles instead of in-depth product
knowledge.

<include salient points of the latest competitor scan>

III. Recommended Research Design and Methods

 A. Industry scan through secondary published sources, augmented by interviews with
selected industry players.

1. Identify leading competitors in terms of revenues.

2. Categorize competition by product mix and client mix.

B. In-depth study of selected leading competitors through Mystery Shopper

1. Product information
2. Pricing
3. Methodology
4. Competitor selling behavior

IV. Analysis

A. General findings
B. General conclusions
C. Identify potential limitations
D. Identify suitable competitor products
E. Analysis of competitor products
F. Publishing of innovative practices