News
Competitive intelligence brings growth to Boise firm-Sleuths amass data on rivals to aid their clients
They´re not bugging offices or digging through a company´s Dumpster.
Competitive intelligence, after all, is not espionage. Neither is it accumulated through illegal methods.
Julie Howard
The Idaho Statesman
It´s a cross between traditional market analysis and stealthy private eye work, and the field has brought rapid growth to a Boise company.
Provizio, http://www.provizio.com/ started as a home-based business in 1998 by Tim Rhodes, now is doubling its office space to 3,000 square feet and plans a similar-size expansion later this year.
The company moved to its current 1,500-square-foot space from a 900-square-foot office last June.
“We see tripling our growth over the next 12 months,” Rhodes said, adding that the 15-worker company added a sales department during the past month and plans to add up to eight more employees this year.
The company went from having 10 Fortune 500 clients to having 42 over the past year, with the vast percentage of business done with companies located out of Idaho, Rhodes said.
The rapid expansion driven by more corporate customers prompted Rhodes and his executive staff to hire competitive intelligence guru Tim Stone as CEO this month.
Stone, who was an executive in the competitive intelligence division at Motorola and has a background in U.S. intelligence operations, will continue to be based at his Chicago office.
“I was very attracted by the formula that Provizio uses to help clients to get a better look at their competition,” Stone said.
The challenge that the company is going to face through its growth spurt, Stone said, will be to convince businesses that Provizio can provide a variety of services, addressing specific questions about competitors and offering broader competitive analysis.
Rhodes said one service Provizio is launching this year is a counterintelligence function, protecting clients from the prying eyes of their competitors.
That service also will help clients prevent theft of intellectual property.
Most Fortune 500 companies have competitive intelligence functions, said Paul Dishman, president of the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals and an associate professor teaching competitive intelligence courses at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.
“You cannot make strategic or tactical decisions without competitive intelligence,” Dishman said. “You can´t do it on the battlefield, and you can´t do it in the corporate world.”
Rhodes said a typical Provizio report can help clients understand a rival´s business roadmap, outline the strategies and tactics it will be using, describe its pricing and analyze its weaknesses.
A 2002 survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded that companies that placed a premium on competitor information outperformed rivals on sustained revenue growth and gross margins.
Robert Flynn, former CEO and chairman of NutraSweet, said in a speech at the annual conference of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals that competitive intelligence was worth up to $50 million each year to his company.
Dishman said industries that typically are most interested in competitive intelligence are pharmaceuticals, chemicals, telecommunications and high technology.
“Being able to understand one´s competitors and markets better is invaluable,” said Tony Hauser, Provizio´s chief operating officer.
To offer story ideas or comments, contact Julie Howard
[email protected] or 373-6618
MATR Supporters (view all)
Sorry, we couldn't find any posts. Please try a different search.