Like the customers they service, transportation service providers also utilize trade data to perform competitive analysis at both an aggregate and detailed level. In a business as competitive as transportation services, any advantage is important, but concrete information received from trade data allows users to deliver results from their competitive intelligence efforts. Below I describe two ways that some of Zepol’s 3PL, NVO, and Carrier subscribers are using trade data to derive business intelligence.

First, at the detailed level, individual sales representatives and managers with access to trade information have a distinct advantage. In practice, this requires researching accounts before making sales calls to understand all the details about a company’s import activity. One of the key elements that should be examined at this time is who the importer’s current transportation service providers are.

One of the ways that this information appears in the trade data is as a notify party on the manifest. It will often show what transportation service provider a company is using, but this is not required. The other element seen in the data for a shipper is the SCAC (Standard Carrier Alpha Code) shown in the Carrier field. This shows which company transmitted the manifest to the Automated Manifest System. Most of the time, this will be a NVOCC or Steamship Line, but will provide insights into what competitors an account executive is up against.

Secondly, at the aggregate level, executives and marketing personnel within 3PLs, NVOs, and Carriers will look at the rolled up information to make strategic decisions. They will analyze the market shares for specific parts of the market. For example, how market share growth trends for specific trade lanes or for all of the accounts in a geographic region helps leaders to adjust where they target their marketing and sales. Other companies will view how well they compete for a specific Line or even on the vessels operated by a Carrier.

While aggregate and detailed level competitive intelligence can significantly improve sales conversion rates and effectiveness of strategic decisions, it is important to note that the level of user penetration in your organization must be vast to feel the full affect. Many companies will attempt to save money by limiting the number of users in their company, but this only reduces the total effectiveness of your intelligence program and diminishes total ROI.

Amongst competitive and business intelligence professionals, one of the biggest problems they face is presenting their findings to stakeholders in their organizations. The Outward Insights Competitive Intelligence blog posted a great entry to this effect on September 28th, in which they discuss some of the methods that the professionals in this industry find most effective for showcasing their findings to others in their companies.

Outward Insights came to the conclusion that executive briefings are the most effective way to get executives to pay attention to and internalize the findings that CI professionals have spent time investigating and creating. These briefings are an important factor in getting the information needed to make decisions and strategies in the decision and strategy makers’ hands.

However, I think it raises a greater point that service providers in the CI community need to consider. Whether you are a business intelligence consultant or a competitive intelligence service provider like Zepol, how you present the information to your users is of great importance. Users should be able to visualize changes in their environments easily and within the user interface. For Zepol, this means providing trends and graphs of aggregate trade information that can easily be exported for the reports that CI professionals will eventually use for hand offs. Even in a face to face situation, stakeholders need quality information to take with them and cement the findings they heard.

If your company is evaluating competitive intelligence service providers, make sure the tools go beyond just searching and exporting data. This is just data and brings nothing to the stakeholders in your company without extensive analysis on the user’s part. Using next generation tools that expose trends and visualize what is happening in your market, turns the data into information, and exposes actionable intelligence that can help drive your company forward.

As a Minnesota based company, we run into people who have certain expectations of 'Minnesota Nice'. We work hard to fill that positive stereotype by providing quality customer service, personalized support throughout the sales process, and constant updates and enhancements to our products that meet our customers' growing needs.

However, sometimes stereotypes can cause confusion and problems in business because we think we already know all the answers.

For example, China is the place to go to get cheap rice right? Nope. Changes in China's social, cultural, and economic climates have greatly reduced their agricultural output. Right now, the place to get rice is Thailand, who dwarfs all other countries' output in both total volume and value imported into the United States. In fact the U.S. imported 77% of its rice from Thailand in the last 12 months; a whopping 982,335,403 pounds!

While the above anecdote is amusing, it also proves a good point. Doing proper research into all avenues of your business is indispensable. It will ensure you are dealing with quality suppliers, that you are able to see the market shifts before you are stuck with a warehouse full of unwanted products, and that no one is profiting from your brand name but you. Proactive trade research and some industry knowledge ensures your business keeps moving forward.

I attended the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals' annual conference in Chicago last week. During the three days, I attended several classes and talked with many members of the business intelligence community including a few customers. I thought I would pass along some observations from the show.

1. Ethics is always an important topic for SCIP members. Collecting information on competitors is a sticky topic for many companies and understanding what is acceptable for a competitive intelligence professional is difficult. One way to avoid ethical quandaries is to use sources available publicly, either on the Internet or from the U.S. government. Many companies that inquire about Zepol’s U.S. Customs trade data tool, TradeIQ, are relieved to find out that we receive all of our data through the United States’ Freedom of Information Act directly from the U.S. government.
   
   
2. Proving a return on investment ensures that the value of CI professionals is measurable in their organizations. Value for competitive intelligence professionals is more about what they can do with the information they collect than the price of the service they use. I spoke with several people who reiterated this point by talking about how the best tools they use do not just spit out data, but transform it into organized information that creates knowledge. Knowledge allows CI professionals to show executives actionable intelligence that shows real, balance sheet impact.
   
   
3. Michael Treacy gave a rousing keynote speech that hit home. Mr. Treacy talked specifically about how CI professionals can use the fundamentals he detailed in his book Double Digit Growth to grow their organizations. Understanding how business intelligence departments can provide the knowledge that executives need to make informed, smart decisions about the future of their companies is essential to achieve sustainable growth instead of stagnant results. While luck is part of how companies succeed, a methodology of choosing the correct path by allowing ideas to compete multiplies success in the long term.