by Jim Cantrell, President & CEO, SSD
 My mother always told me that a person’s eyes are the “window into their soul”. We can easily recognize if someone is angry, distressed or happy by reading their eyes. In fact, the art of studying eyes and body language is practically a science. To avoid eye contact while speaking to somebody is a display of rude behavior. Shifty eyes are considered to be a sign of dishonesty. Staring or glaring at another person can make others feel extremely uncomfortable. A good interviewer responds to questions calmly and by looking at each interviewer as he speaks.
The pertinent point here is that visual cues given by someone in terms of body movements and eye contact tell us a lot about that person and form a big part of how we “size them up”. Human interaction has evolved over the long history of human existence. Our expressions and the way we respond to a person’s visual cues are instinctive and automatic. As we will find out, the same is true by analogy for companies and their websites.
An internet presence can be good and bad. The good component gives us an unparalleled ability to project our value proposition to many people and organizations that represent a potential customer community. The bad factor is that it is virtually impossible for a company to differentiate between those viewing the information as a potential customer or a potential competitor. One reaction could be to limit the amount of information placed on the internet but this is a fool hardy strategy.
Over the last ten years the world has progressed in the standards of information and the way information is shared. This is largely due to the use of the World Wide Web. The aerospace community has not been immune to this major shift as it was not too long ago that the corporate world, even the aerospace industry, shunned the use of the internet as anything other than a means to communicate privately. However, nowadays the expectation of most customers is that if a company exists, it must have an internet presence. A further shift in the last five years from the customer community is the expectation to transact business over the internet – when only ten years ago it was a “wild west” scene of eclectic information. Thus, if you are in business today and you do not have an internet site, you do not exist. This is true of even the normally staid aerospace industry.
Once a company establishes an internet presence, it essentially becomes responsible for the image that it presents to the world. Part of this responsibility will be to make the best use of the opportunity and to use this portal to successfully gather new customers. We have found in our practice that well over 75% of engineers, buyers, and potential customers looking for an aerospace product or service will first turn to the internet as its primary source of information. Thus, companies with a website face the dilemma of how much information to put on that site. If you do not put a compelling and forthright value proposition onto the site, you are likely to lose the customer’s interest or worse, leave them with the wrong impression about what you are good at and why. On the other hand, if you offer the customer detailed brochures on what you build and what services you offer, you might give those customers a buying preference early on in the acquisition decision. Thus, we always recommend to our clients that you are better served by offering as much high-quality information on your website as you can afford.
On the flipside, by leaving your front door open for your customers and potential clients, you have left the backdoor open for your competition to size you up and better understand your value proposition. This is an unavoidable result of the combination of the internet age combined with the need to present your self in that medium. The best part for a competitive intelligence analyst is that this information gathering can be done anonymously. So based on this reality, let’s look at how a competitive analyst can make use of a company internet site.
As a competitive intelligence analyst, the first rule is to look at every part of the target website and explore every link. If the target company is publicly traded, then make sure to browse through the SEC filings, financial information and presentations to investment analysts. You might be surprised to learn what is available from this simple source of information. Make sure that you also read the company press releases and look for links that take you into archives of programs, products and press releases. If the company has archived investor teleconferences, look through those as well.
The second rule for the competitive intelligence analyst is to think creatively about the information that you see. Data is data but data combined with experience creates intelligence. Think how all the data fit together and what they mean. This is particularly true of combining elements and information from sources such as press releases, programs, hiring opportunities and press statements. Remember that your picture of the company will come from the totality of information from their website, your experience with this company and outside independent sources.
The third rule when looking at the website is to employ external search engines on the site looking for unlisted links and files on the open web directory. I like to use Google and use the web root directory (i.e. Targetcompany.com) combined with file search terms like .ppt and .xls looking for briefing files and spreadsheets. By combining these search terms you will find files available on the site and typically unavailable from the open links.
The bottom line is that it is an extremely useful and necessary tool for a company to have an online presence. As a company you have no choice to put this information out there but you can be strategic in how you present yourself. Find the balance between showing a good and interesting value proposition without giving too much information away to potential competitors. Many companies are tempted to restrict much information on the public areas of the site but this is not a good strategy. Rather than focus efforts on restricting information, focus on making your own value proposition unique, stand out and keep ahead of your competition with an army of engineers rather than an army of lawyers! As a competitor, you are a fool not to sift and use the information found on company websites to your benefit.
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