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Small businesses increasing marketing spend

Chartered Management Institute

A study carried out by Yougov has found that a third of small businesses are planning to increase their marketing spend next year. You are not watching this post, click to start watching read more.

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“Competitive Intelligence” Shouldn’t Just Be About Your Competitors

Harvard Business Review

For the next year, Jessica Eliasi, then the director of Competitive Intelligence at Mars Chocolate, travelled the world running “competitive simulation” games with local market teams from Russia to Mexico to Turkey to England. Simply and clearly put, CI is a perspective on changing market conditions.

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Companies Collect Competitive Intelligence, but Don’t Use It

Harvard Business Review

The second requirement is to anticipate response to your competitive moves so that they are not derailed by unexpected reactions. This “island mentality” is surprisingly prevalent among talented, seasoned managers. Some estimate the market for market research alone at $20 billion annually.

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Social Media for CEOs

N2Growth Blog

They are risk managers who believe in protecting what was rather than embracing what is, and what will be. . They are opportunity managers who believe engagement to be more valuable than silence, they believe in dialog not monologue, they believe in change and innovation – not in status quo. . The Truth (as I see it).

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How Competitive Intelligence Rules Encourage Cheating

Harvard Business Review

Yet when it comes to lower-level employees responsible for gathering competitive intelligence, those same lawyers impose Draconian rules that prevent employees from speaking with a competitor directly, or even engaging a third party to speak with a competitor on their behalf. Respondents from the U.S. Are the alarm bells ringing yet?

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Use Your Sales Force’s Competitive Intelligence Wisely

Harvard Business Review

The vast majority of your marketing data, whether from purchases or surveys, tells you about your business customers’ past behaviors. Your job as a manager is to know what your customers will do next month or next year. My colleagues and I have seen numerous examples of sales forces gaining important competitive knowledge.

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Are Apple’s Patent Wars a Marketing Strategy?

Harvard Business Review

Often, managers think about patent litigation as a “narrow” strategy to protect a particular technology against a specific infringer. Plenty of management books describe patent litigation in such a narrow way: you file a suit to recover damages from someone who is copying you. Probably way more than Apple’s lawyer bills.