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DE / EN
Tool 12

Competitive Comparison of a Measure

Tool 12: Competitive comparison of a measure
Pfannenberg/Tessmer/Wecker: JP KOM Toolbox EN
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Overview of tools

Guiding question

What topics, applications and services do competitors' media offer compared to your own medium?

Objectives

  • Identify which key topics (e.g., Mission/Vision, Research & Development, Brands, Sustainability) are communicated in the media of competitors
  • Determine which applications and services are used on competitors' channels
  • Demonstrate how companies from pioneering industries (e.g., consumer goods and telecommunications) are making good use of dialog and multimedia applications
  • Identify gaps in own measure and recognize opportunities opened up by gaps in competition
  • Derive recommendations for optimization

Implementation

The table compares the characteristics of the measure of competitors with the characteristics of the own measure. It is determined which topics and applications (applications such as moving images) the competition uses and which (communicative) services it offers. If applicable, these are briefly described.

Benchmarking is performed in the following steps:

  1. Screening of competitors' media, e.g., websites. If necessary, measures from neighboring sectors or particularly advanced industries can also be included in the analysis, as can international best practices such as those that can be identified through awards.
  2. The table with the measure of the own company and those of the competitors is set up and, if necessary, further supplemented in the course of the analysis process.
  3. The competitive comparison is made in dimensions such as Topics, Services and Used (e.g. digital) applications.

Theory: Data Mining

Data mining procures information and key figures outside the own company as well as from the existing data sets in the own company. 

Specialists in data mining or even data journalists use individually programmed crawlers that scan databases and other internal and external sources and make the data available. These crawlers are based on Python or on a special software (e.g. OpenRefine, Gephi, Tableau, DataWrapper). These tools read, interpret, and present the information, resulting in actionable insights for managing communications.