The Crucial Source of Information: People

A couple of days ago we received an enquiry from an executive: his impression was that a competitor was executing the strategy of systematically targeting countries, one at a time, directing a disproportionate level of marketing resource at that country until the firm achieved the No. 1 position in that country, then moving on to the next country.

The shift to the next country necessarily involved the reduction of resource aimed at the first country, so that the resource could be transferred to the next. Presumably the customers and channel partners in the country either wouldn't notice the reduction or, if they did, had become so loyal to the vendor that they wouldn't bother to switch to another vendor.

Was the executive's impression correct, he asked? And if so, how could we counter the strategy?

Led by our director, our initial position was the null hypothesis: the vendor wasn't targetting countries one at a time, but instead behaving consistently across all countries, and over time. Indeed it's very difficult to find evidence that suggests the contrary:

• We forwarded the question to our worldwide counterparts, who are normally assumed to be wise in all matters. They took some time and some pushing to respond. When they replied, they knew of no serial targeting strategy in Europe by the vendor.
• There was no secondary research, no single report, that focussed on the vendor's country-by-country strategy or gave any impression of the timing of such a strategy.
• There was nothing that we could look for in our own financial records that could possibly demonstrate a single vendor exercising a country-by-country strategy. If our results go up or down, it is usually due to a load of market effects and the actions of multiple competitors. To show the movements of a ghost vendor through our financial records seemed impossible.
• We found several news clippings from 2007 that indicated that resellers liked this vendor for its consistency.
• We didn't approach any employee who had previously worked for this vendor, because to do so would be unethical.

A first draft of a 'No Evidence' presentation was forwarded to the original requesting executive. A second version, polishing the English and improving the flow of the argument, but basically maintaining the 'no evidence' position, was produced.

Then suddenly, a contrarian view came through. Our European channels specialist, who had been copied on the request, not by us but by one of our respondents, said he had spoken to a respected external analyst, who said the vendor did, at times, employ a targeted, country-by-country approach.

So much for serendipity. My personal view is that the exernal analyst is so experienced and respected that we should take his word for it. Besides, he has direct contact with the vendor itself.

So the moral of this story is that much of the time in market intelligence, you'll be relying on the judgements of people. Numbers have their place, but too often they are historical—too historical to act upon. The more accurate they are, the older they are likely to be. If you try to work it out all on your own, you're almost bound to miss some important points. So ask for input, almost always.