Staying abreast of best practices in a field is a major activity for any market watcher. Depending on your watch priorities, this "permanent benchmark" can lead you to constantly adjust your sales approach. Several sources of best practice are thus observable:
Case studies of your competitors
By demonstrating the support offered to their customers, your competitors reveal valuable elements:
- Target sector / Target company;
- Diagnosis / process of identifying a challenge, a problem at a customer;
- Resources mobilized and approaches to solving the challenge/problem in question at a customer;
- Tangible results and ways of measuring these tangible results at a customer;
- Target persona.
All these topics can help you adapt your approach in the field.
**Your competitors' product/service demonstrations**
In addition, by demonstrating their offer (particularly via webinars), your competitors show points of interest:
- Accompaniment offered to the customer;
- Positioning for products and services;
- Innovative features for their products and services;
- "After the sale" - what support is offered?
Here too, these different aspects can support you in a continuous improvement approach.
** Towards a broader view of best practices in your field**
Concentrating your monitoring of best practices in a field by focusing on the most direct competitors can provide some serious leads. But you also need to look beyond this group. Indeed, other players in your field can guide you in identifying best practices in your industry:
- Professional associations: continuous improvement is an aspect often put forward by several professional groups. There is currently a growing interest in more environmentally-friendly production on their part, and also targeted attempts aimed at their members to adapt to this topic.
- Equipment and integrators: best business practices are one thing, but best production practices are also something to keep an eye on. Can your partners advise you on this? Do you do any vigilance on this subject?
- Public institutions (universities, ministries, etc.): the CCTTs are one of many examples of avenues to follow when it comes to monitoring best practices in a field in Quebec.
December 7, 2024