301-Competitive Intelligence, Competitor Benchmarking and Mystery Shopping
- ONLINE
(formerly 302)

Course Category:

• Core course
• This course is required for members wishing to write the Comprehensive Marketing Research Exam (CMRE)

In our current economic climate, competitive edge has never been more important for survival. Companies have to maintain and even increase revenues despite shrinking budgets and layoffs.

Whether you need competitive intelligence to counter a competitive threat, benchmark industry leaders to learn about their best practices, arm your sales team with intelligence to win the sale or conduct a mystery shop to identify gaps in your sales and service delivery, this full day, fast paced workshop will provide you with the tools and templates to do so.

With 25 years providing intelligence support to business leaders including Bell Mobility, Canada Post, CIBC, Home Depot, Pepsi, Petro-Canada, Pfizer, Toronto Dominion and Union Gas, the instructor delivers a workshop that is loaded with real life examples and easy to follow.

You will also:

• Be contacted by the instructor prior to the workshop for any questions or issues you would like to discuss during the workshop.
  
• Participate in discussion groups, mini-cases and a quiz to learn how the concepts and techniques can be easily applied the day after you finish the course.
  
• Receive a follow up email 2 weeks after the workshop answering any questions that you had during the workshop that we did not have time to address.

Major topics covered in this course include

Basics - what is CI, applications, best practices, ethics, sources (primary , secondary, internet), gathering intelligence on private companies, planning your first CI study, how to leverage your marketing research skills to maximize your CI output, tips on conducting CI interviews, developing your network of sources, analyzing and interpreting raw data, using financial ratios to pinpoint your competitor‘s strengths and weaknesses, reconstructing competitive sales messages, producing actionable CI reports, conducting accuracy checks, incorporating templates to streamline your efforts, predicting competitor threats, war gaming and developing strategies to counter these threats

Managing Your CI Program - developing your CI plan, tips for setting up your CI program, pros and cons of CI software, recruiting colleagues to collect CI, do's and don'ts of outsourcing CI, managing your client’s needs, defensive CI (eliminating information leaks within your own company and preventing competitors from gathering intelligence on your own company), putting together a CI newsletter and evaluating the effectiveness of your CI program

Special Applications - mystery shopping, competitor benchmarking, using CI to assess new market opportunities and Marketing CSI

Recommended Prerequisites

For the table of Core course prerequisites, please click here.

	Members seeking CMRP designation				Client-Side Researcher		Research Supplier
	Little or no exposure		Less than 2 years experience		2-8 years experience		8+ years experience

Course Format

• Course Length: 6 hours broken into modules of 15-20 minutes each
  
• Slide presentation with instructor voice over
  
• 1 month limit to complete the course
• For terms and conditions, click here

Multi Course Bundle Savings

Multi course bundle savings will apply when more than 1 course is purchased by an individual in the same online transaction in the MRIA Portal:

2 courses = 10% off
3 to 5 courses = 15% off
6 or more courses = 20% off

Once the final test is successfully completed, participants will be able to print their certificate of course completion.
 

MRIA courses and their administration are subsidized by members' fees. Therefore, members enjoy a reduced cost for courses. For terms and conditions, click here.