Page 128 - International Marketing

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130 International Marketing BRILLIANT'S

 Interviews with the acquisition targets: They help to gauge
the strategy, intentions, performance and characteristics of the
acquisition targets themselves.
 Interviews with competitors of the acquisition target: They
help to assess the competitor's views of the company's strengths
and weaknesses as well as their strategy, intentions, performance
and characteristics.
 Interviews with customers of the acquisition target: They allow
us to gauge the reputation, performance and brand values of the
acquisition target, as well as pick up 'industry gossip' regarding
issues such as the target's financial status, etc.
 Suppliers and distributors to the acquisition target: They are
generally of less use, but can provide some interesting information
in terms of the performance and attributes of the acquisition target.
 Published information such as annual reports and industry reports
3. Competitor intelligence studies: Competitor intelligence stud-
ies are in increasingly high demand. The companies seek the 'inside' view
of that company's strategy and approach, such as, sales figures and pro-
duction data. Certainly this inside view can be extremely valuable. Simi-
larly, even more valuable, however, is 'external' intelligence on the com-
petitor. Such information does not require anyone to 'tap up' an employee
or search through the company's garbage can. This can be obtained from
the following sources of information:
(a) Press analysis: Publicly available information such as financial
figures, changes of key personnel, senior management statements, etc
can be of great interest and most companies conduct such research in-
house on a regular but unsystematic basis. On a more formal basis, a
common project conducted by external market research and intelligence
agencies is 'marketing analysis of competitors'. Press analysis can also
be used to assess competitors' marketing strategy (by assessing the
messages behind the ads) and through examining employment advertise-
ments, gain valuable intelligence on wage rates.
(b) Pricing research: There are number of different types of pricing
research. Statistical techniques such as conjoint analysis and SIMALTO
are pure market research techniques. These are used to calculate what
prices the market would bear for different types of offering. In terms of
competitive intelligence studies, competitor pricing research is easier to
explain but not to carry out. It involves trawling websites, price lists and
other sources of information for the prices of competitors' products and
services. This information is then benchmarked against one's own prices.