"Hold your friends close. Hold your enemies closer."

It's obvious that Michael Corleone of Godfather fame, with this Machiavellian aphorism, was a realist in understanding human nature.

Most organizations make an attempt to know their own strengths and weaknesses. They work hard in identifying their customer base, but in the pursuit, they forget about their competition.

The three basic laws of success have to do with knowledge: Product knowledge, Customer knowledge, and, most importantly, competitor knowledge! We've heard, "Don't worry about the competition. Stop worrying what your competitors are doing or not doing. Pay attention to your product or service and the rest will take care of itself." This is not true - don't believe it. We need to know our competition just as intimately as we strive to know our products, and our customers.

In the business world, it's all-out "survival of the fittest". The more you know of your competitor's strengths and weaknesses, the more effective you will be. Having an intimate knowledge of the competition may rank as one of the most important factors in the sales equation. The reason for this is because all buying decisions are made in consideration of competing factors.

Vortex will help you to focus on your competitive environment by:

• Identifying and analyzing your competition
• Researching a competitive pricing position
• Strategically positioning your products & services
• Delivering focused, targeted market studies on your industry segment