How Hiring a Private Investigator Can Get You Ahead of the Competition

Posted by Pamela S. on Thursday, October 4th, 2012

When people hear the terms business intelligence, corporate intelligence or competitive intelligence, they often think “corporate espionage”. Here is the difference: one of these is illegal and unethical. A private investigator is an information gat

herer with an edge. We aren’t a market research company and we aren’t management consultants, but what we do can be more strategic and valuable to your company than both of those services.

 

What is Business Intelligence?

• You’ve probably conducted your own form of business intelligence. This is what you are doing when you attend a trade
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  show, take off your badge and walk around to scope out your competitors’ booths.

• Even that amateur foray into your competitors’ world can provide you with valuable information on their product, pricing and ability to sell.
• If you have ever watched the TV show “Shark Tank”, where budding entrepreneurs seek funding from venture capitalists, you know that doing your homework is key to business success. Those who can’t answer simple questions about their competition, don’t get the investment money.

 

Why should you hire a Private Investigator to conduct research into your competitors?

• Competition is good. It keeps you on your toes and helps you up your game, but if you don’t know what the competition is doing, you can lose out. Comparing their company with yours is a way to benchmark your performance, and identify opportunities and manage risk.
• If you have protected your product or service with a patent or copyright, you need to make sure that no one else has infringed on your idea.
• A competitor can price you out of the market. If you have similar products, but someone is selling it for less, where are they having it manufactured?
• You will be better informed for making strategic decisions regarding the future of your business.
• How are your competitors promoting their product and how successful are their campaigns? This may sound like market research, but there is a difference. A market research company surveys customers and other people and gathers opinions on a product or topic. The information is analysed to identify market trends.

 

Business intelligence is more in-depth and focuses on your competitors. Business intelligence investigations can include background information on your competitors in the following ways:

• Information on the principals of the company and the organizational structure
• Processes
• Outsourcing
• Technology
• Financial and legal information.
• A private investigator can monitor the Internet and social media to determine what people are saying about the competitor’s products or services. Are they comparing competitors’ products to yours? Are you receiving an unusual amount of nasty reviews on Amazon.com, while people rave about a competing product? An investigator can determine whether your competition has a hand in these negative comments. It isn’t unheard of for a company to trash their competitors online.

In order to move your company into the future, you have to have in-depth knowledge about your marketplace and the people who can trespass on your turf . A private investigation company, like Sheer Investigations, with experienced knowledgeable investigators who special in business intelligence, can get the information that will put your company ahead of the competition.

 

 

Former FBI Assistant Director Tom Sheer has recruited the best from the FBI, DEA, IRS and Secret Service to build a formidable team at Sheer Investigations. Our private investigators have the sensitivity and experience to handle the most delicate investigations.