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Managing Competitor Information

Effective sales and marketing requires that your company have up-to-date and consistent information about the competitive landscape. This section describes how to administer information about competitors and competitive products.

Tracking competitor information in Siebel Life Sciences involves the following steps:

• Creating account records for competitors and selecting the Competitor field. For more information, see Specifying a Competitor.
• Creating records for competitors' products. For more information, see Defining External Products.
• Adding comparative and competitive literature files to the application. For more information, see the chapter on literature administration in Applications Administration Guide.

To administer competitor information you must:

• Define company features and product features that can be used to compare your company and its products with those of your competitors. For more information, see the procedures To define company features and To define product features.
• Enter information about competitive products, product and company comparisons, and competitive and comparative literature. For more information, see the procedure To enter competitor comparison information.

To define company features

1. Navigate to the Competitors screen > Company Features Administration view.
2. In the Company Features list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.

To define product features

1. Navigate to the Product Features Administration screen > Product Features Administration view.
2. In the Product Feature list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Feature	The product comparison criterion; for example, Once a Day Formulation.
   Description	A description of the feature, if necessary.

To enter competitor comparison information

1. Navigate to the Competitors screen > Competitor Administration view.

   The Competitors list appears.

   This list displays every account flagged as a competitor. Note that the Competitor Flag field is checked for every record. For more information on creating competitors, see Specifying a Competitor.

2. In the Competitors list:
   • Select a competitor.
   • Optionally, enter the competitor's World Wide Web address (URL) in the Home Page field.
3. In the Company Competitor list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Feature	The features listed in the Add Competitive Company Features dialog box are defined in the Company Feature Administration view. For more information on adding company features, see To define company features.
   Rank	Enter the numeric rank of the feature as defined by your business process.

4. (Optional) Click the Competing Product Comparison view tab, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
5. (Optional) Click the Literature view tab:
   • Create a new record in the Competitor's Literature list and complete the necessary fields.
   • Create a new record in the Comparative Literature list and complete the necessary fields.
6. (Optional) Click the Product Literature view tab, create a new record in the Product Literature list, and complete the necessary fields.
7. (Optional) Click the Product Literature view tab and select a product in the Product Literature list:
   • In the Competitor's Product Literature list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
   • In the Comparative Product Literature list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.

For information on these fields, see the chapter on literature administration in Applications Administration Guide.