Generating competitive intelligence is an important activity for an organization. It is the competitive intelligence that helps in shaping strategic marketing decisions (Kotler) and build market oriented organizations (Day). Competitive Intelligence has been summarized by AuroraWDC as the process of purposeful and coordinated monitoring of the competitors in the marketplace.
In this essay, we shall look into a product and brand and generate its competitive intelligence through secondary research techniques. For this process, the choice of brand is the new and upcoming product called the Google Nexus 7. It is a soon to be launched Tablet computer that has created a huge amount of interest in the mobile and electronics consumer market. Tablet computers are the latest gadgets to storm the marketplace of consumer electronics. We shall be looking in detail the product, the company and its competitors in the market and try to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses with respect to the competing products.
The Tablet
Tablet computers are quite possibly the hottest electronic gadget to be available in the market today. The product was conceived as an alternative for laptops and mobile phones. The Tablet computers were targeted as being a product in between a conventional laptop and a mobile phone. The idea was to provide consumers with a device that provided productivity like a laptop and at the same time offer functionality of mobile phone like phone functionality and longer battery life and multimedia features.
The Tablet PC is not a new product and the earliest of the designs of an electronic with data input and output on a flat display date back to as early as 1880 called the telautograph (Gray). The Dynabook is often seen as the precursor to the modern day tablets. Today the Tablet PC’s consist of a flat touch screen and are operated by touch and lack a physical keyboard or mouse for navigation purposes. The Tablet PC’s in the marketplace today run on a variety of platforms and OS’s. The choice of the brand and product one chooses is often motivated by the type of OS the device runs. The options of OS available today are the iOS, Android OS, Microsoft Windows mobile OS and QNX from RIM.
The Tablet PC’s of today are fundamentally different from the earlier avatars in a sense that all of the current models are targeted more towards multimedia and entertainment features than being a mobile PC offering full scale productivity while being mobile. The typical functions found on a Tablet PC today include the following:
Wireless mobile web browser
Potential cell phone functionality
GPS navigation
E-book reader
Emailing and other Social media functions and applications
Camera for video and photo capture as well as video calling
Movie player and entertainment features
Downloadable apps for games, education and other utilities
The Tablet PC’s are all rectangular in shape but come in different sizes. The Tablet PC’s come in screen sizes from 6-7 inches to 9-11 inches. The more conventional size of the Tablets is the 9-11 inches. However the 7 inch tablets are fast increasing in popularity with them being touted as mini-Tablets.
The Company and the Product
Anyone who has ever accessed the World Wide Web knows of the company called Google. Google.com is the world’s most popular and most widely used internet search engine. Apart from being the most popular internet search engine, Google has other services and products too. With its acquisition in 2005 of Android (Elgin), a company that developed open source operating system by the same name for mobile phones, Google ventured into the mobile phone applications and services market. Since its entry as a provider for the open source operating system for mobile phones, Google has come out with the device of its own from time to time. Such phones were launched with hardware partnerships with major manufacturers. The first of such device was the Google One launched with the partnership with HTC. Since then Google has launched three other mobile phones, each featuring the newest version of the OS.
However, the Google Nexus 7 marks the entry of Google with its own Tablet PC. Built in association with ASUS, the Google Nexus 7 is a mini Tablet with screen size of 7 inches. The Google Nexus 7 is going to retail at $199 for its cheapest variant. The Nexus 7 sports many new features that were previously absent in other tablets. It comes with the latest version of the Android OS Jelly Bean. The device weighs only 340 grams and comes with an internal memory of 8/16 GB.
The Competitors
The Google Nexus has a lot of competitors to fight with in the Tablet market. The simple reason for it is the high demand and desirability of Tablets in the consumer market. The three biggest competitors of Goggle Nexus are
Apple Ipad
Kindle Fire
Samsung Tablets
The biggest among the three mentioned above is the Apple Ipad. The Apple Ipad is seen as the product which brought the Tablets into the mainstream electronics consumer market. The current version of the Ipad, the Ipad 3 is the most selling tablet. There are a lot of features where the product scores over the Nexus 7. The Ipad sports a much crisper and clear screen. The display is also larger at 9.6 inches and with its premium aluminum finish. The Ipad certainly looks more premium than the rest. However the Ipad lacks a few features like the USB connectivity, NFC and the free Google Play marketplace offering up to 2 million free applications, which are available on the Nexus 7. Also the size of screen being 7 inches, Google Nexus 7 might be preferred over the Ipad for the ease of carrying and ability to operate with a single hand, which is not very easy to do on the Ipad.
The Google nexus, when compared to the Kindle Fire looks very identical in terms of the features and specifications. However, the Google Nexus 7 is much better than its counterpart as it sports much superior hardware, a better screen and a full-fledged and new android OS. The Kindle Fire has a much stripped down version of the Android OS and lacks considerably in terms of hardware and screen quality.
The Samsung 7 inch tablets are expected to provide tough competition for Nexus 7. The Samsung models are very identical to the Google’s product, but offer better camera specifications and also have phone functionality, something that I missing in Google Nexus 7. However, Nexus 7 scores much higher in terms of the price and affordability. Available for starting price of $199, the price is much lesser than the Samsung models with little compromise on the features.
Industry and Consumer Trends
The trends in the industry and consumer change very rapidly in the electronics consumer market. The industry trends currently project Tablets as an entertainment and lifestyle device, rather than as a replacement of laptops (Frost & Sullivan). The industry is also divided upon the choice of OS and the development of applications on it. The options of OS include Android OS, iOS for Apple, QNX for Blackberry, Windows mobile and WebOS. This is where the Android OS and thus the Google Nexus 7 surges ahead. Being open source, it enables development of applications for it much cheaper and more and more companies can implement it into their hardware with little money spent in terms of licensing fees.
Consumer trends run in parallel with the industry trends. The consumers are on the lookout for innovative products which are easy and fun to use and something that helps them to remain forever connected to the World Wide Web, offer long battery life and have new and interesting applications targeted at games or utility. The availability of millions of applications has provided a huge push for the android tablets. As long as there are a variety of intuitive apps available, the Tablets will continue to sell and retain their versatility and functionality.
