Re: Fact Sheet + Bench marking for IT OSS
The tasks are to:
1) Identify the market space in which the company A operates.
2) Its product offerings
3) Identify a competitor B
4) Differentiating factors between A & B
5) Likely future trend of the market space
[snip]
While I have gotten info on the first 2 from A's website, items 3, 4 & 5
prove elusive. Do you have any idea where I could go for this?
#3
I assume from the way this item is worded that you were NOT given the name of the specific competitor but must choose a company yourself.
Try one of the meta search sites (mamma.com or dogpile.com, for example) for a web search on the name of the industry +Company A (example: 'telecommunication +Nortel'). The top 3-5 sites from each search engine used by the metasearch engine should contain a variety of news articles and corporate marketing sites that compare Company A with other companies in its industry. Pick one of these competitors as Company B.
#4
This information should be available in the information you gathered for step #3.
#5
Most of the worthwhile business trend analysis sources are only available through subscription services like Dialog, Lexis/Nexis, the various Gale Group indexes and custom reporting services such as Gartner and Hoover. Since I can't afford annual subscriptions to these sources, I'd handle this part by going to the public library or a nearby university library and using their online or CD-ROM business and engineering indexes.
There are a few publicly available online business and industry literature indexes, but they are just that: indexes. They rarely allow free online access to the full text of the articles and reports. There are a few online news services that allow access (with free registration) to selected recent articles and might have what you're looking for. I'd try the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, and ABC news. They all have reasonably good business and industry coverage. Several other sources have web sites that offer free access (with registration) to a subset of their trend analysis and report services:
http:// www.techrepublic.com
(includes summaries of recent Gartner reports)
http://www.hoovers.com/feature/block/detail/0,2417,18_1757,00.html
http://www.cio.com/archive/index_industry_overview.html
http://www.businesstrendanalysts.com/
http://www.clisearch.com/
Hope this helps,
--
Kat Nagel, MasterWork Consulting Services
There are 10 kinds of people in the world:
Those who think in binary, and those who don't.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Want to support TECHWR-L? Get shirts, bags, hats, clocks,
and more from the TECHWR-L Store. All proceeds support TECHWR-L. http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store/store.aspx?storeid=techwhirl
Save up to 50% with RoboHelp Deluxe. Get 2 great products for 1 low price!
You'll get RoboHelp Office PLUS RoboDemo, the software demonstration tool
that everyone's been talking about. Check it out and save!
http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
Previous by Author:
Re: Knock it off
Next by Author:
RE: How often is your resume read on job boards?
Previous by Thread:
RE: Fact Sheet + Bench marking for IT OSS
Next by Thread:
Fact Sheet + Bench marking for IT OSS
Search our Technical Writing Archives & Magazine
Visit TechWhirl's Other Sites
Sponsored Ads