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Competitor Research and Anticipation

Understanding your competitors' moves, from The McKinsey Quarterly. (subscription required.)

I found it effective to have my H-R function alert me when we'd hired away a competitor's employee. I'd buy that new employee a cup of coffee and ask a few simple questions: What was it like to work there? What are they doing better than us? What should we learn from them? What's the buzz about their future?

You'd be amazed what I learned, though most employees were initially convinced they had no valuable information to offer. Was it anecdotal? Sure. Was it always actionable or decisional? No, not always. But put it together with more-traditional primary and secondary research and the competitor landscape makes a little more sense.

And you meet some nice people along the way.


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