Competitive Intelligence

What is competitive intelligence?

Competitive intelligence, also known as corporate intelligence, helps companies gather and analyze information about other companies in the same market. 

In most cases, competitive intelligence is focused on the aspects that give another company a competitive advantage over the company doing the analysis. This data is then used to give the business a better understanding of opportunities and challenges in their industry.

Competitive intelligence software can be used to review sales, marketing, products, and customers of another company. The information gathered in these tools is centralized to give teams information to collaborate and make more informed, strategic decisions.

Types of competitive intelligence

The specific type of competitive intelligence conducted will depend on which team is leading the research and what the information is going to be used for. Most information falls into one of two categories:

• Strategic: Focusing on long-term goals like risks and opportunities, strategic competitive intelligence primarily gathers data about a competitor business’s overall sales and marketing, along with their product or service offer. Any changes made as a result of this intelligence are long-term and can be more difficult to implement or get executive sign-off.
• Tactical: This research is short-term and focused on immediate impact and effects. Increasing market share or company revenue are usually the key goals for this competitive intelligence.

Basic elements of competitive intelligence

To get a more complete picture of the competitive landscape, any competitor intelligence work should include research into:

• Competitor analysis: Knowing exactly who is a competitor and gathering as much information about them as possible is critical. This should form the basis for any competitive intelligence, whether this is looking at individual or multiple businesses at one time. 
• Market analysis: Beyond individual businesses themselves, it’s also vital to understand where those companies fit into the wider market. This should include research on market conditions, target audience, existing customers, and any forecasted sales figures or upcoming changes expected within that market.
• Strengths and weaknesses: Conducting a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis for every competitor business can highlight focus areas. 

Benefits of competitive intelligence

Every business should have a good understanding of where they stand in their industry and market. Competitive intelligence provides this information, along with other benefits such as:

• Providing data for more accurate benchmarks. Knowing what competitors are doing is an opportunity for setting better goals as a business. These goals can have wide impacts within a company, such as resource allocation, budgeting, and employee satisfaction. Any additional data to make these goals more realistic is beneficial.
• Allowing teams to make more informed decisions. For sales teams pitching to new clients, having an understanding of what competitors are doing means presentations can be tailored to go head-to-head with those other businesses. The same is true for marketing teams. For example, when it comes to product design, knowing what competitor businesses are offering gives more room for innovative developments to be made to counter features in competitor products.
• Giving insights into the wider landscape. It’s easy to make assumptions about certain customer demographics and frame sales and marketing around these. Knowing what’s working well for competitors can validate or disprove these assumptions, making a company’s overall strategy more effective.

Best practices for competitive intelligence

There are many possible avenues to take when conducting competitive intelligence. Although it may feel overwhelming, there are best practices that can be followed to make the process simpler. These include:

• Setting clear goals: As competitive intelligence data can have significant impacts on the overall strategy of a business, it’s crucial to outline what data should be gathered and why. Giving each team a specific focus means that data isn’t being wasted and everything is concentrated around clear strategic goals.
• Identifying a handful of key competitors: By focusing on three or four top competitors, the information gathered will be more useful and usable. Any businesses with similar offers, market share, and values should be considered as top competitors.
• Finding reputable sources for information: Any public-facing data about a competitor company should be gathered for competitive intelligence. This could include information on their website, social media, or PR efforts in local or global media. It’s also important that no form of corporate espionage or illegal tactics are used to gain private information for competitive intelligence purposes.
• Building research into weekly work: By incorporating research tactics into other daily and weekly job responsibilities, competitive intelligence becomes second nature to internal teams and makes bigger research projects less overwhelming.

Give teams opportunities to collaborate and share competitive intelligence data remotely using virtual workspace software.