netrashetty
MP Guru
Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT), also known as "CAT", designs, manufactures, markets and sells machinery and engines and sells financial products and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network.[2][3] Caterpillar is the world's largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines and industrial gas turbines.[2] With more than US$7 billion in assets, Caterpillar was ranked number one in its industry and number 44 overall in the 2009 Fortune 500.[6] Caterpillar stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.[7]
Caterpillar Inc. traces its origins to the 1925 merger of the Holt Manufacturing Company, the inventor of the crawler tractor, and the C. L. Best Tractor Company, creating a new entity, the California based Caterpillar Tractor Company.[8] In 1986, the company re-organized itself as a Delaware corporation under the current name, Caterpillar Inc.[3] Caterpillar's headquarters are located in Peoria, Illinois, United States.[1]
Caterpillar machinery is recognizable by its trademark "Caterpillar Yellow" livery and the "CAT" logo.[9]
The method of marketing to a specific generation is affecting the way that we promote and sell products and services. We are all a product of our generation. Each generation have their own characterestics, because of this as a marketing target we can usually categorize by generations by the way that we act and speak as well as our belief systems.
There are four popular generational categories that most marketers tend to focus on.
They include:
Millenials or Generation 2001ers, born after 1980
Baby Busters or Generation Xers born between 1965 and 1980
Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964
Mature Citizens born between 1909 and 1945
In order to market effectively to a generation you must find a way to grab their attention, by using a message that resonates with them. Generational determined lifestyles and social values exercise as much influence on buying and purchasing as more commonly understood demographic factors like income, education, and gender do--perhaps even more.
To succeed in generation marketing you must understand how the motivation of your consumers correlate with the underlying values of their generation. When you know this you are able to customize your message to cater to the generation when it comes to your products and services. You can then present the message with your products, services, and communication to their needs and desires.
Of course, every generation ultimately will pass through the same life stages, from youth to old age. As the younger generations find their place in society as consumers, employees and parents, it becomes more and more important for businesses to acknowledge this soon-to-be-powerful demographic. Build brand loyalty with them now, and you may reap the results for the rest of their lives.
toring of companies with which their own employees are most interested. This led to some early insights of emerging competitors. A final example is how Wal-Mart stores studied problems Sears had with distribution, and built a state-of-the art distribution system so that Wal-Mart customers were not frustrated by out-of-stock items, as were Sears's customers.
ETHICAL METHODS
Competitive intelligence is not spying on the competition. It has been associated in the past with the political and military intelligence used during the Cold War era. Because of this association, many people think that competitive intelligence uses illegal, shady, or unethical means to gather information about competitors. Visions of wiretapping, bribing competitor's employees, or stealing information come to mind. This is not true today. Such techniques can damage the reputation and image of corporations and are not worth the risk. SCIP takes a strong position on the importance of ethics and developed a code of ethics for members. Note the words, "legal and ethical," and the emphasis on retrieving data from "open sources." Competitive intelligence experts use openly-available information. They do dig into public records and government databases and use the latest technology (such as satellite photoreconnaissance and software tools such as spiders) to help gather and analyze large datasets. However, the professionals and companies for which they work do not use illegal methods.
THE PROCESS
Today, competitive intelligence is an important activity within corporations, serving all areas of business functioning: research and development, human resources, sales, etc. A recent survey by The Futures Group found that 80 percent of large, U.S.-based organizations have a formal, in-house, competitive intelligence department. In the future, competitive intelligence activities will become standard. The wide availability of information on the Web makes competitive intelligence more accessible to medium-size and small firms. Software tools to analyze and disseminate intelligence also make it easier to implement competitive intelligence tools. The process of competitive intelligence is outlined in the following steps:
Setting intelligence objectives (i.e., designing the requirements)
Collecting and organizing data about the industry and competitors
Analyzing and interpreting the data
Disseminating the intelligence
SETTING THE OBJECTIVES.
A clear statement of the intelligence needs of the organization should be outlined by management. If this step is ignored, the competitive intelligence department will be bogged down with too much information and possibly distracted by ad-hoc requests for data. This step is necessary regardless of where in the organization the competitive intelligence department is located. Some corporations have competitive intelligence report directly to the CEO; in others, it is located in marketing or in research and development. The role of any competitive intelligence program should be driven by the needs of the corporation, especially areas that have key performance consequences.
COLLECTING AND ORGANIZING THE DATA.
The online revolution has enhanced ease in collecting and obtaining information, but the competitive intelligence expert must constantly be alert to new sources and places for finding information. The most obvious data collection sources include trade magazine and newspaper articles, company Web sites, newswires, chat forums, and Web search engines. Free information is available on industries via census data on government Web pages. Similarly, free public company information from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, such as the 10-K and 10-Q report, can be easily obtained on the Web. These corporate reports yield detailed financial and product information and also identify mergers, acquisitions, and legal proceedings against the company. Other channels for fee-based data are information aggregators such as Factiva, Lexis Nexis, Hoover's Online, MergentOnline and Standard and Poors's databases. Analyst reports and market research reports from companies such as Jupiter, Forrester Research, and Frost and Sullivan, although usually quite expensive to acquire, provide detailed analyses on companies and industries.
ANALYZING AND INTERPRETING THE DATA.
Analysis and interpretation is the real core of competitive intelligence. Collected data must be transformed into "qualitative" information (i.e., intelligence). One way to analyze data obtained from the Web is to use a Spider. There are competitive intelligence Spiders available that index and categorize documents found though Web searchers. Whether a Spider is used or not, the next step is to interpret the information. Lehmann and Winer outline four important aspects competitive intelligence professionals need to interpret about competitors: their current and future objectives, their current strategies, their resources, and their future strategies. Once this assessment is complete, competitive intelligence professionals measure their companies in comparison to competitors; this is known as benchmarking. From the benchmarking process, trend identification and prediction can be made.
Caterpillar Inc. traces its origins to the 1925 merger of the Holt Manufacturing Company, the inventor of the crawler tractor, and the C. L. Best Tractor Company, creating a new entity, the California based Caterpillar Tractor Company.[8] In 1986, the company re-organized itself as a Delaware corporation under the current name, Caterpillar Inc.[3] Caterpillar's headquarters are located in Peoria, Illinois, United States.[1]
Caterpillar machinery is recognizable by its trademark "Caterpillar Yellow" livery and the "CAT" logo.[9]
The method of marketing to a specific generation is affecting the way that we promote and sell products and services. We are all a product of our generation. Each generation have their own characterestics, because of this as a marketing target we can usually categorize by generations by the way that we act and speak as well as our belief systems.
There are four popular generational categories that most marketers tend to focus on.
They include:
Millenials or Generation 2001ers, born after 1980
Baby Busters or Generation Xers born between 1965 and 1980
Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964
Mature Citizens born between 1909 and 1945
In order to market effectively to a generation you must find a way to grab their attention, by using a message that resonates with them. Generational determined lifestyles and social values exercise as much influence on buying and purchasing as more commonly understood demographic factors like income, education, and gender do--perhaps even more.
To succeed in generation marketing you must understand how the motivation of your consumers correlate with the underlying values of their generation. When you know this you are able to customize your message to cater to the generation when it comes to your products and services. You can then present the message with your products, services, and communication to their needs and desires.
Of course, every generation ultimately will pass through the same life stages, from youth to old age. As the younger generations find their place in society as consumers, employees and parents, it becomes more and more important for businesses to acknowledge this soon-to-be-powerful demographic. Build brand loyalty with them now, and you may reap the results for the rest of their lives.
toring of companies with which their own employees are most interested. This led to some early insights of emerging competitors. A final example is how Wal-Mart stores studied problems Sears had with distribution, and built a state-of-the art distribution system so that Wal-Mart customers were not frustrated by out-of-stock items, as were Sears's customers.
ETHICAL METHODS
Competitive intelligence is not spying on the competition. It has been associated in the past with the political and military intelligence used during the Cold War era. Because of this association, many people think that competitive intelligence uses illegal, shady, or unethical means to gather information about competitors. Visions of wiretapping, bribing competitor's employees, or stealing information come to mind. This is not true today. Such techniques can damage the reputation and image of corporations and are not worth the risk. SCIP takes a strong position on the importance of ethics and developed a code of ethics for members. Note the words, "legal and ethical," and the emphasis on retrieving data from "open sources." Competitive intelligence experts use openly-available information. They do dig into public records and government databases and use the latest technology (such as satellite photoreconnaissance and software tools such as spiders) to help gather and analyze large datasets. However, the professionals and companies for which they work do not use illegal methods.
THE PROCESS
Today, competitive intelligence is an important activity within corporations, serving all areas of business functioning: research and development, human resources, sales, etc. A recent survey by The Futures Group found that 80 percent of large, U.S.-based organizations have a formal, in-house, competitive intelligence department. In the future, competitive intelligence activities will become standard. The wide availability of information on the Web makes competitive intelligence more accessible to medium-size and small firms. Software tools to analyze and disseminate intelligence also make it easier to implement competitive intelligence tools. The process of competitive intelligence is outlined in the following steps:
Setting intelligence objectives (i.e., designing the requirements)
Collecting and organizing data about the industry and competitors
Analyzing and interpreting the data
Disseminating the intelligence
SETTING THE OBJECTIVES.
A clear statement of the intelligence needs of the organization should be outlined by management. If this step is ignored, the competitive intelligence department will be bogged down with too much information and possibly distracted by ad-hoc requests for data. This step is necessary regardless of where in the organization the competitive intelligence department is located. Some corporations have competitive intelligence report directly to the CEO; in others, it is located in marketing or in research and development. The role of any competitive intelligence program should be driven by the needs of the corporation, especially areas that have key performance consequences.
COLLECTING AND ORGANIZING THE DATA.
The online revolution has enhanced ease in collecting and obtaining information, but the competitive intelligence expert must constantly be alert to new sources and places for finding information. The most obvious data collection sources include trade magazine and newspaper articles, company Web sites, newswires, chat forums, and Web search engines. Free information is available on industries via census data on government Web pages. Similarly, free public company information from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, such as the 10-K and 10-Q report, can be easily obtained on the Web. These corporate reports yield detailed financial and product information and also identify mergers, acquisitions, and legal proceedings against the company. Other channels for fee-based data are information aggregators such as Factiva, Lexis Nexis, Hoover's Online, MergentOnline and Standard and Poors's databases. Analyst reports and market research reports from companies such as Jupiter, Forrester Research, and Frost and Sullivan, although usually quite expensive to acquire, provide detailed analyses on companies and industries.
ANALYZING AND INTERPRETING THE DATA.
Analysis and interpretation is the real core of competitive intelligence. Collected data must be transformed into "qualitative" information (i.e., intelligence). One way to analyze data obtained from the Web is to use a Spider. There are competitive intelligence Spiders available that index and categorize documents found though Web searchers. Whether a Spider is used or not, the next step is to interpret the information. Lehmann and Winer outline four important aspects competitive intelligence professionals need to interpret about competitors: their current and future objectives, their current strategies, their resources, and their future strategies. Once this assessment is complete, competitive intelligence professionals measure their companies in comparison to competitors; this is known as benchmarking. From the benchmarking process, trend identification and prediction can be made.