I once did an an analysis of competing vendors for a multi-million dollar bid. I wrote up a 20 page report for my bosses ordering the bidders, and rationalizing the reasons for their rankings. I used 8 criteria, and for each vendor, I scored them not only as pass/fail, but where they stood relative to the other vendors, as well as listing positive features why we might consider them, and drawbacks why we shouldn't.
I wasn't the only evaluator. The bid had multiple criteria, so just because I recommended a vendor didn't mean it would be picked. As my boss put it, none of us could say yes to the bid, but any one of use could say no. I could love a vendor and say it had the best software, but if the safety team or legal team said no, that was it. And if the safety team said a different vendor was the best, if I said it couldn't solve the business problem, that would also be a no.
After the decision was made, many of the losing vendors were interested in my analysis, so, with my management's permission, I gave them all tailored subsets of it where I evaluated their specific bid.
Most were thankful. One even flew some guys up from California to spend a day with me (at a very pricey Italian place) asking "what could we have done to win". But one vendor, a big name in the industry, was outraged that they lost the bid, even though they had placed second. They said the company was an idiot for not choosing them, that I personally was incompetent, that they had 85% of the market (and they did) for a reason, that we'd regret not picking them, etc., etc.
They didn't have the slightest idea in "your stupid contractor's moronic analysis", and that I could put my 8 recommendations where the sun didn't shine.
A year later, they had lost several existing customers, were at 15% of the market, and sinking fast. And their bids to reestablish market presence were crashing hard.
So, they hired a big name consultancy group (like Gartner Group, but specific to the industry), who spent about two months doing a deep data into the market, their offering, the competition, the changing legal landscape, etc. When they submitted their results to the board, it was an 80 page analysis in a leather binder, filled with lots of colourful pie charts on glossy paper; it was really professional looking. Of course, for the $60,000 they were charging for the analysis, it damned well should.
Someone snuck a copy out for me to see. Sure enough, they made a number of recommendations to regain market share. They made 8 recommendations, in fact. And they mapped one to one to the same recommendations I'd made a year earlier.
To be clear, I'm not saying that they copied me, or anything like that. They didn't. And to be fair, they went into much more detail than I had, with more data backing it up. But we did the same analysis, and came to the same conclusions.
The difference was, mine were typed up on 8 pages of computer printout, and were free. Theirs were in a glossy, leather bound volume with colour pictures, and cost $60K.
As the saying goes, "advice is what you pay for it".
A lot of companies do this, with zero integrity, open-palmed like evangelical pastors, the most obvious examples are Apple, Balenciaga, Rolex - selling what their competitors sell for a 1,000-fold markup, because their customers just want the most expensive objet du jour, to impress their associates.
I mean that actually can be a legit strategy, giving the impression of better quality. But it only works on new customers. It has a much higher potential to drive away your current customers.
Current capitalism seems to value new customers significantly over longstanding customers, despite countless studies proving that losing an established customer is much more costly than attracting even multiple new customers.
I once did an an analysis of competing vendors for a multi-million dollar bid. I wrote up a 20 page report for my bosses ordering the bidders, and rationalizing the reasons for their rankings. I used 8 criteria, and for each vendor, I scored them not only as pass/fail, but where they stood relative to the other vendors, as well as listing positive features why we might consider them, and drawbacks why we shouldn't.
I wasn't the only evaluator. The bid had multiple criteria, so just because I recommended a vendor didn't mean it would be picked. As my boss put it, none of us could say yes to the bid, but any one of use could say no. I could love a vendor and say it had the best software, but if the safety team or legal team said no, that was it. And if the safety team said a different vendor was the best, if I said it couldn't solve the business problem, that would also be a no.
After the decision was made, many of the losing vendors were interested in my analysis, so, with my management's permission, I gave them all tailored subsets of it where I evaluated their specific bid.
Most were thankful. One even flew some guys up from California to spend a day with me (at a very pricey Italian place) asking "what could we have done to win". But one vendor, a big name in the industry, was outraged that they lost the bid, even though they had placed second. They said the company was an idiot for not choosing them, that I personally was incompetent, that they had 85% of the market (and they did) for a reason, that we'd regret not picking them, etc., etc.
They didn't have the slightest idea in "your stupid contractor's moronic analysis", and that I could put my 8 recommendations where the sun didn't shine.
A year later, they had lost several existing customers, were at 15% of the market, and sinking fast. And their bids to reestablish market presence were crashing hard.
So, they hired a big name consultancy group (like Gartner Group, but specific to the industry), who spent about two months doing a deep data into the market, their offering, the competition, the changing legal landscape, etc. When they submitted their results to the board, it was an 80 page analysis in a leather binder, filled with lots of colourful pie charts on glossy paper; it was really professional looking. Of course, for the $60,000 they were charging for the analysis, it damned well should.
Someone snuck a copy out for me to see. Sure enough, they made a number of recommendations to regain market share. They made 8 recommendations, in fact. And they mapped one to one to the same recommendations I'd made a year earlier.
To be clear, I'm not saying that they copied me, or anything like that. They didn't. And to be fair, they went into much more detail than I had, with more data backing it up. But we did the same analysis, and came to the same conclusions.
The difference was, mine were typed up on 8 pages of computer printout, and were free. Theirs were in a glossy, leather bound volume with colour pictures, and cost $60K.
As the saying goes, "advice is what you pay for it".
No one really values something they're given for free.
A lot of companies do this, with zero integrity, open-palmed like evangelical pastors, the most obvious examples are Apple, Balenciaga, Rolex - selling what their competitors sell for a 1,000-fold markup, because their customers just want the most expensive objet du jour, to impress their associates.
I want to joke about this one, but it's too accurate 😔
I can only agree with @Mostly Lurking.
I, too, really want to joke about this'n and mock management roundly.
Too accurate to, though.
Sighhhhhhhhhh....
I mean that actually can be a legit strategy, giving the impression of better quality. But it only works on new customers. It has a much higher potential to drive away your current customers.
Current capitalism seems to value new customers significantly over longstanding customers, despite countless studies proving that losing an established customer is much more costly than attracting even multiple new customers.
*shrugs*
Perhaps even the manager is smarter than the average consumer?
Well, technically the big boss can be a customer too so... 😅