When doing competitive analysis,
a business analyst’s best friend
is the public reporting requirements.
Private companies don’t have to report details
such as store openings or revenue growth to the public.
Subsidiaries of public companies
can also hide under the mother company’s umbrella.
Public companies, however, are required
to expose much of their normally proprietary information
to anyone with access to the financial reports.
In the internet age,
that means everyone,
including the competition.
Paul House,
outgoing CEO of doughnut company Tim Hortons,
talks about the challenges
with no longer being a subsidiary of a larger company
(Wendy’s).
“There’s more disclosure,
your competition knows more about you and
that’s certainly a disadvantage.”