The Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) has been around for a long time in various forms. Market competitors have always sought the gray area in which they could mimic a successful company’s formula without violating patent or copyright laws. Big Data has analysts excited about the future, with some believing that CMAs will hit new highs of accuracy and insight. Still, all the data in the world means nothing unless it’s relevant to your business. So how do you choose?

“Benchmarking is relevant if it’s relevant,” said Riaz Raihan, global senior VP and worldwide head of Digital and Value Engineering at Infor, Inc.

Raihan told Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and George Gilbert (@ggilbert41), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during Inforum 2016 in NYC, “There’s no point comparing a half-billion-dollar company to a ten-billion-dollar company — the economics of scale just don’t compute.” Likewise, he said, “You can’t compare a company in Brazil with a company in Russia. They have very different dynamics.”

Raihan explained that in order to provide relevant benchmarking, his Value Engineering team uses only the most relevant samples for making market comparisons, suggestions and predictions for customers.

The differentiation equation

Raihan said that copycatting is not the only purpose of studying competitors. He contended that market analysis can lead companies to ideas on how they can innovate and identify untapped markets.

“We want to go to our customers and say, ‘Look, we have compared your performance at multiple levels to your peer group, to your industry, and we believe you’re missing out on a certain opportunity — or better yet, you have an opportunity to differentiate and do something special,'” he said.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Inforum 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE