Business Competitive Intelligence: How to Use It to Grow Your Business

Competitive intelligence can benefit businesses of all sizes. The importance of competitive intelligence and analysis in marketing cannot be overstated.

This process allows you to gather and use information about your competitors to improve your business. It can help you understand their activities, strengths, weaknesses, and positioning in the market.

Competitive intelligence can be used in various ways, including marketing, pricing, and product development plans.

Competitive intelligence professionals play a crucial role in systematically gathering and analyzing market-related information. They utilize various strategic sources to gain deeper insights into the competitive landscape and enhance business decision-making.

Previously, only enterprise-level businesses had the funds to invest in competitive intelligence. But that is changing. Crayon’s 2017 study found that 37% of businesses lacked dedicated CI staff. This number increased by 20% in 2020.

Thanks to the ease with which information is available online, small businesses can now implement competitive intelligence strategies without spending much money. However, it’s important to note that only a small portion of competitive intelligence involves easily accessible online information.

One thing to remember about competitive intelligence is that it does not limit these insights to C-Suite executives. Team members can benefit from the information CI gathers.

• We train sales personnel to address objections and ease pain points.
• Marketing can adapt their messaging to reach their users better.
• The product team can better understand competitors’ pricing and packaging patterns.

Aligning competitive intelligence with overall business strategy ensures that the insights gathered are actionable and directly contribute to achieving organizational goals.

What is Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive intelligence (CI) involves gathering, analyzing, and using information to understand the competitive environment and how it affects your business. CI allows companies to quickly identify and react to trends, allowing them to capitalize on market demands and anticipate challenges. It can also help you decide better what products or services to offer, where to allocate resources, and how to respond to competitive threats.

You can use various methods to gather competitive intelligence, including public sources such as company websites and SEC filings, private sources such as trade publications and industry analysts, and primary research, such as surveys and interviews. Once you have gathered this information, you must analyze it to identify trends and insights. Then, you need to implement it by using it to inform your business decisions.

Competitive intelligence is an important part of any business and can help you gain a competitive edge. It can help you understand your competition and how it affects your business so you can make better decisions about the products and services you offer, where to allocate resources, and how to respond to competitive threats. CI also helps businesses avoid strategic surprises by identifying potential disruptions in their external environments.

Competitive intelligence is the organizational function that identifies risks and opportunities before they become obvious (also known as “early signal analysis”).

There is a clear distinction between disseminating widely available facts (such as financial reports and market statistics) and competitive intelligence, a view of developments and events aimed at gaining a competitive advantage.

Although CI often refers to competitor analysis, it is not synonymous with competitive intelligence. Competitive intelligence encompasses more than just analyzing competitors. It also includes the entire environment and stakeholders, including customers, competitors, and distributors, as well as technologies and macroeconomic data. It can also aid in decision-making.

CI analysis should be an integral part of developing a business plan. Using published and unpublished sources gives insight into the marketplace dynamics and challenges.

Organizations that implement an excellent competitive intelligence program quickly recognize its importance. Good competitive intelligence about rivals’ strategies, financial performance, and resource allocation can yield important insights

Competitive Intelligence:

1. It is not spying or industrial espionage. Legal, strategic, and tactical analysis and research are used to identify threats or opportunities.
2. Focuses on the external business environment.
3. It is a sophisticated means to find competitive gaps and establish a strategy.
4. It comes in many styles and formats, some formal and structured and others more casual.
5. It is all employees' way of living, working, and thinking.
6. It does not count on software or technology as the driving force. Management directs the process and uses critical analysis to make sense of the information.
7. It is not a method of judging the market based on company assumptions. It is a way for companies to look beyond themselves into the larger market and the competitive landscape.
8. Enhances the work of marketing, the sales team, financial planning, and operations.
9. Respect antitrust and trade secrets laws, ethical best practices, and the client's corporate code of conduct.
10. Reduces uncertainty and decision risk in external developments.

The Competitive Intelligence Cycle

The competitive intelligence cycle is a continuous process that involves gathering, analyzing, and disseminating competitive intelligence to support business decision-making. This cycle consists of six crucial stages:

1. Planning: The first step is to define the scope and objectives of your competitive intelligence efforts. This involves identifying the key competitors, markets, and technologies you need to monitor. Clear planning ensures that your competitive intelligence activities are focused and aligned with your business goals.
2. Collection: Next, gather competitive intelligence from various sources. These include public databases, social media, industry reports, and customer feedback. The goal is to collect comprehensive and relevant data to provide insights into your competitive landscape.
3. Analysis: Once the data is collected, it must be analyzed to identify patterns, trends, and insights. This stage is critical as it transforms raw data into actionable intelligence to inform business decisions.
4. Dissemination: After analysis, the insights must be shared with relevant stakeholders, including executives, product managers, and sales teams. Effective dissemination ensures that the intelligence is used to inform strategic decisions across the organization.
5. Action: The next step is to use competitive intelligence to inform business decisions. This can include product development, marketing strategies, and sales tactics. The goal is to leverage the intelligence to gain a competitive edge.
6. Evaluation: Finally, continuously evaluate the effectiveness of your competitive intelligence cycle. This involves assessing the intelligence's impact on your business decisions and making necessary adjustments to improve the process.

By following this cycle, businesses can ensure that their competitive intelligence efforts are systematic, focused, and effective in driving strategic decisions.

Types of Competitive Intelligence

Strategic Intelligence

Strategic Intelligence focuses on the long term, examining the issues affecting a company's ability to compete over the next few years.

The industry and the pace of change will determine the strategic intelligence time frame.

It addresses two general questions:

1. “Where should we be as a company in X years?” and;
2. “What strategic risks and opportunities face us?”

The competitive advantage lies in a company's ability to identify and respond to environmental changes before its competition.

Strategic management plays a crucial role in long-term planning. It helps organizations avoid strategic surprises through environmental scanning and industry analysis.

This type of intelligence work includes identifying and applying a method and process called Strategic Early Warning (SEW).

Experts believe that 20% of the work of competitive Intelligence practitioners should be dedicated to strategic early identification and management of weak signals within a SEW framework.

Tactical Intelligence

Tactical intelligence focuses on information that can help make better decisions in the short term. We often link this to increasing market share and revenues. By leveraging tactical intelligence, businesses can gain market share, improve their market position, and respond effectively to marketplace challenges.

Tactical intelligence is the information an individual needs to support the sale process within an organization. It examines different product or product line marketing aspects and helps understand competitive dynamics among firms producing similar products.

Organizations can avoid surprises by having the correct information. This includes expecting competitors' moves and decreasing their response time.

Daily newspapers like Fortune, Business Week, and The Wall Street Journal use competitive intelligence research.

Major airlines alter hundreds of fares daily in response to competitors' tactics. They use this information to plan their marketing, pricing, and production strategies.

Identifying and Analyzing Competitors

Identifying and analyzing competitors is a critical component of competitive intelligence. This process involves several key steps:

1. Competitor Profiling: Start by creating detailed profiles of your key competitors. This includes gathering information about their strengths, weaknesses, market strategies, and overall business operations. A comprehensive competitor profile provides a solid foundation for further analysis.
2. Competitor Analysis: Analyze your competitors’ products, services, and market positioning. This will help you identify areas where you can differentiate your offerings and potential vulnerabilities in your competitors’ strategies. Understanding these aspects can help you develop a more effective competitive strategy.
3. Market Share Analysis: Analyzing market share data is essential to understand your competitors’ market presence and trends. This analysis can reveal which competitors are gaining or losing market share and help you identify opportunities to capture a larger market share.
4. SWOT Analysis: Conduct a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis for each competitor. This helps you identify their strengths, weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats that could impact their business. A thorough SWOT analysis provides valuable insights that can inform your competitive strategy.

By systematically identifying and analyzing your competitors, you can better understand the competitive landscape and develop strategies to outperform them.

Gathering Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence involves collecting data from various sources to gain insights into your competitors and the market. Here are some practical methods for gathering competitive intelligence:

1. Public Databases: Utilize public databases, such as company registries and industry reports, to gather competitor information. These sources can provide valuable data on competitors’ financial performance, business operations, and market activities.
2. Social Media: Monitor social media platforms to gather information on competitors’ marketing strategies and customer engagement. Social media can provide real-time insights into competitors’ promotional activities, customer feedback, and brand perception.
3. Industry Reports: Analyze industry reports to gather information on market trends and competitor activity. Industry reports often provide comprehensive data on market dynamics, competitive landscape, and emerging trends.
4. Customer Feedback: Collect customer feedback to learn about competitors’ products and services. Customer reviews, surveys, and interviews can provide valuable insights into competitors’ strengths and weaknesses from their customers' perspectives.
5. Competitor Intelligence Tools: Utilize competitor intelligence tools, such as Ahrefs and SEMrush, to gather information on competitors’ online presence and marketing strategies. These tools can provide detailed data on competitors’ SEO performance, advertising campaigns, and content strategies.

By leveraging these methods, businesses can gather comprehensive and relevant competitive intelligence to inform their strategic decisions.

Competitive Intelligence Tools for Industry Analysis

There are a variety of competitive intelligence frameworks that businesses can use to gain a competitive advantage over their competition. Market intelligence involves tools and processes to analyze data about target markets and competitors, informing strategic decision-making. Some of these tools include:

• competitive analysis
• SWOT analysis
• business model analysis
• Porter’s Five Forces analysis
• market research
• industry analysis

These frameworks can help businesses understand their competitive landscape, identify opportunities and threats, and develop strategies for more effective competition. In specific industries, the requirement for substantial financial resources is a significant barrier to entry, making it challenging for new competitors to enter markets dominated by established giants.

Software Tools

The internet offers a treasure trove of information and data that can analyze your competitive situation. Whether the sales team is looking for ways to win more deals or the leadership team is working to develop a compelling long-term strategy, the internet can help inform those initiatives. Here are a few examples of online solutions that can help:

Crunchbase

Crunchbase provides a wealth of company information, including funding, M&A, and leadership. Crunchbase is a collaborative effort of its venture partners network and in-house data teams that use machine learning technologies to provide information about industry trends and investments. It also provides news about global companies, from startups to Fortune 1000, for millions of users.

Owler

Owler lets you view all the key information for your top competitors. You can then compare these details to identify emerging and indirect competitors in your market.  Owler provides stories about your company, customers, prospects, and partners to keep you informed. It is an excellent tool for gathering competitive intelligence.

SEMRush

The SEMRush Competitive Analysis Toolkit gives you a comprehensive view of potential partners' and competitors' performance. These tools enable you to analyze and break down your competitors' marketing strategies from multiple perspectives, including SEO, Advertising and Content, PR, and Social Media.

This toolkit contains multiple resources, allowing you to make data-driven, accurate decisions based on quality metrics. It lets you see how your competitors attract customers, monitor their online reputation, and identify growth opportunities in low-competition niches. This information will give you insights into your competitors' strategies and, in return, help you adapt them to make your online presence stand out.

By using the right tools and techniques, businesses can gain valuable insights into their rivals' strengths and weaknesses and the overall dynamics of the market. This information can help businesses decide where to allocate resources, how to price their products and services, and which market areas to focus on. Why is Competitive Intelligence Important?

SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb provides insight into your competitors' websites' performance and traffic patterns. Is their website receiving more traffic than yours? They may convert more visitors to their site than you are. Is your website attracting more visitors?

SimilarWeb will also give you information about the source of incoming traffic. Are they referral sites, organic search terms, or any other source?

SimilarWeb offers a peek at your online competition landscape. SimilarWeb's free version shows you the top five competitors based on industry and website traffic. This information can identify weaknesses in your web strategy and help you improve it.

How Can I Use Competitive Intelligence in My Business?

If you're looking to implement competitive intelligence in your business, here are a few tips:

• Start by creating a competitive analysis grid. This will help you track and compare your competitors based on various factors, such as their size, market share, product offerings, and pricing. Competitive intelligence can also help improve the efficiency of existing operations by identifying best practices and areas for improvement.

• Collect as much information as possible about your competitors. This includes both public and private information. You can find public information online or through industry publications. We can gather private information by interviewing customers, suppliers, and competitors' employees.
• Use the information you gather to develop strategies to help you differentiate yourself from your competitors. For example, if you know your competitor is focusing on price promotions to attract customers, focus on developing a unique product that will attract customers based on other factors. Companies with fairly broad product lines can diversify their offerings to capture various market segments, enhancing their competitiveness.
• Monitor your competitors' activities closely and adjust your strategies as needed. Competitive intelligence is ongoing, so you must continually gather and analyze information to stay ahead.

Competitive intelligence programs can help you grow your business by giving you the information you need to develop differentiated strategies from your competitors. By closely monitoring your competitors' activities, you can ensure that your strategies are always up-to-date and effective, giving your sales team the edge they need to win.

Developing a Competitive Intelligence Strategic Planning

Understanding the competitive landscape is one of the most important aspects of any business. Doing so can give you a leg up on your rivals and help you make more informed strategic decisions. Competitive intelligence (CI) is gathering, analyzing, and using information about your competitors to stay ahead of them.

There are several ways to gather competitive intelligence. The most common methods include:

• examining public sources such as company websites and annual reports
• interviewing with customers and suppliers
• tracking mentions of your competitor in online forums and social media
• using web analytics tools to track your competitor's website traffic and search engine rankings
• subscribing to industry publications and newsletters

Once you have gathered this information, you must analyze it and identify trends. What are your competitors doing that you're not? What strategies are they using that seem to work well? What weaknesses can you exploit?

Strategic planning involves gathering and analyzing data for long-term decision-making. In industries that require significant capital investment, companies often need to invest substantial financial resources in manufacturing facilities, which poses a significant barrier to entry for potential competitors. Now that you understand your competitor's strengths and weaknesses, you can develop your competitive strategy. You may focus on different markets, target customer segments, or launch new products and services. Whatever you decide, ensure your strategy is based on sound research and analysis, not just guesswork.

Competitive research is a critical component of any successful business. By gathering accurate information and research reports about your competitors and using it wisely, you can stay ahead of the curve and outmaneuver your rivals.

Competitive Intelligence Best Practices

Five Key Goals of Competitive Intelligence Programs

1. Win Deals

It is difficult to convince a potential buyer to choose your product or service over other options. Sales reps must differentiate their solution to convince potential buyers that it is unique. Without competitive intelligence, this is impossible. How can you convince others yours is better than theirs if you don't have deep insights into the market and consumer data?

2. Improve Positioning

Prospects must feel there is a reason to evaluate your solution before one of your representatives can engage with them. A salesperson is unlikely to be given the time of day unless they see something interesting about your offer.

Your marketing team creates a competitive position. Like sales reps, marketers convince prospects that their solution is unique.

Your marketing team has access to more funnel stages than your sales staff. This is a key difference. It's through the brand's positioning that marketers—specifically product marketers— establish the differentiated value of your solution. Competitive intelligence is crucial. Attracting prospects' attention is difficult if you don't know your competitors.

3. Manage Products

Product management handles (1) planning and (2) building the product. Product managers create and execute a roadmap to differentiate your solution from the competition. Without competitive insight, product managers can't do their job. Creating something different from the rest is challenging if you don't know your competitors.

4. Customer Retention

A new customer is a reason to celebrate in a competitive market. However, just because you have gained a customer does not mean you are immune to your competition.

That you have secured a long-term or multi-year contract does not mean that your competitors are uninterested in your customers' business. To ensure your customers are loyal, you need a customer support team. Customer success representatives must be able to respond quickly to any customer who expresses an interest in looking at other solutions.

These situations require competitive intelligence. Customer service reps who deeply understand the competitive landscape will show their clients that their company's solution is still the best.

5. Build a Competitive Advantage Strategy

Executive leaders create and implement long-term strategies. This responsibility goes beyond product strategy, although that is the focus of someone who holds the positions of Chief Product Officer or Vice President of Engineering.

Making Competitive Intelligence Actionable

Making competitive intelligence actionable involves using the gathered intelligence to inform business decisions and drive strategic initiatives. Here are some ways to make competitive intelligence actionable:

1. Developing a Competitive Strategy: Use competitive intelligence to develop a competitive strategy that differentiates your company. This can involve identifying unique value propositions, targeting underserved market segments, and leveraging your strengths to gain a competitive edge.
2. Informing Product Development: Use competitive intelligence to inform product development and ensure that your products meet customer needs and stay ahead of competitors. This can involve identifying gaps in the market, understanding customer preferences, and benchmarking against competitors’ offerings.
3. Enhancing Marketing Strategies: Use competitive intelligence to enhance your marketing strategies and stay ahead of competitors. This can involve analyzing competitors’ marketing campaigns, identifying effective tactics, and developing targeted marketing initiatives to attract and retain customers.
4. Improving Sales Tactics: Use competitive intelligence to improve your sales tactics and stay ahead of competitors. This can involve understanding competitors’ sales strategies, identifying key differentiators, and developing compelling sales pitches to win over customers.

By making competitive intelligence actionable, businesses can leverage the insights to drive strategic initiatives and gain a competitive advantage in the market.

Understanding the societal environment is crucial for strategic planning as it encompasses various external forces such as economic, technological, political-legal, and sociocultural factors that organizations must consider.

Executive leaders help their direct reports do their job as efficiently as possible. They also need competitive insights, such as how we can continue to grow revenue and market share over time. Is there a market we can enter? What do these markets look like? What are the ways we're at risk? What can we do as a company to defend ourselves from the competition?

Although it may not seem obvious, the role of competitive intelligence is essential in answering these questions. It is impossible to plan for market growth without knowing who your competitors are and how they position themselves in the eyes of potential buyers. You can't plan to enter a new market without knowing who your competitors are.

Finally, understanding your competition's strengths and weaknesses is crucial in planning to mitigate risks.

Battle Cards

A battle card, usually a 1-pager, provides a quick overview of your competitors and a way to compare how you perform against them in key areas of value and performance.

Battle cards can help identify competitors in the same strategic group, allowing you to understand which organizations share similar strategies and resources.

It is important to identify key themes and key takeaways. Keep these to only three so the sales team can easily remember them.

The sales team should memorize these three points to quickly access the necessary information. It might be helpful to have key capabilities and a comparison chart.

Consider a components table if your solution or competitor has many components. Remember to include your direct and indirect competitors in this analysis, which will include your and your competitors' major advantages.

Tell your customers what's on the product roadmap. If they can integrate with one platform, let them know.

Battle cards are strictly for your salespeople. You don't want customers to know about your shortcomings and disadvantages.

Reaffirm key themes and key takeaways. Challenge your salespeople to make them a habit. Keep your battle cards updated.

Getting Started

There are a few competitive intelligence program best practices that businesses can implement to get started. The first step is to create a process for collecting and analyzing data. This can include setting up alerts for company news and announcements, tracking competitor activity online, and subscribing to industry publications.

The next step is identifying the key stakeholders involved in the competitive intelligence process. This includes decision-makers within the organization and employees who know the competitive landscape. Ensuring everyone involved can access the resources and tools needed to perform their role is essential.

Finally, it's crucial to establish clear guidelines for how the information will be shared and used within the organization. This will help ensure we carry out competitive intelligence activities responsibly and ethically.

By following these competitive intelligence best practices, businesses can gain a competitive edge by staying informed about their industry and the activities of their competitors.

Deliverables and Reporting

Deliverables and reporting are critical components of competitive intelligence. They ensure that the gathered intelligence is effectively communicated to stakeholders and used to inform business decisions. Here are some key deliverables and reporting methods:

1. Competitive Intelligence Reports: Create regular competitive intelligence reports to share with stakeholders. These reports should comprehensively overview competitors’ activities, market trends, and strategic insights.
2. Competitor Profiles: Create detailed competitor profiles to share with stakeholders. These profiles should include competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, market strategies, and overall business operations.
3. Market Analysis Reports: Create market analysis reports to share with stakeholders. These reports should provide insights into market dynamics, competitive landscape, and emerging trends.
4. Competitive Intelligence Dashboards: Create competitive intelligence dashboards to provide real-time insights into competitor activity. These dashboards can track key metrics, monitor competitors’ online presence, and identify emerging trends.
5. Competitive Intelligence Alerts: Create competitive intelligence alerts to notify stakeholders of changes in competitor activity. These alerts can inform stakeholders of significant developments and ensure timely responses to competitive threats.

By providing these deliverables and reporting methods, businesses can ensure that competitive intelligence is effectively communicated and used to inform strategic decisions.

Conclusion

There are many reasons businesses should implement a competitive intelligence program. Some of these reasons include:

• Staying ahead of the competition
• Creating a high-performance sales process
• Understanding your competition's strengths and weaknesses
• Determining what products and services to offer
• Gaining a competitive edge in the market
• Monitoring industry changes and trends
• Developing new strategies based on competitor actions

Competitive intelligence is crucial in a consolidated industry, where a few large firms dominate, and intense competition prevails. By understanding your competition's strengths and weaknesses, you can determine what products and services to offer and gain a competitive edge.

Monitoring industry changes and trends will help you develop new strategies based on competitor actions. Implementing competitive intelligence is essential for any business looking to stay ahead in today's competitive market.

Q&A: Understanding Competitive Intelligence for Business Growth

What is competitive intelligence?

Competitive intelligence is the process of gathering, analyzing, and utilizing information about competitors, market trends, and industry developments to make strategic business decisions. It involves understanding your competitors' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to gain a competitive edge in the market.

Why is competitive intelligence important for business growth?

Competitive intelligence is crucial for business growth because it helps organizations stay ahead of market trends, anticipate competitor moves, and identify potential opportunities and threats. By leveraging this information, businesses can make informed decisions, optimize their strategies, and enhance their market positioning.

What are the key components of a competitive intelligence program?

The key components of a competitive intelligence program include:

• Data Collection: Gathering information from various sources such as market reports, competitor websites, social media, and industry publications.
• Analysis: Analyzing the collected data to identify patterns, trends, and insights.
• Dissemination: Sharing the insights with relevant stakeholders within the organization.
• Action: Implementing strategies based on the insights to improve competitive positioning.

How can small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) benefit from competitive intelligence?

SMBs can benefit from competitive intelligence by:

• Identifying market opportunities and emerging trends.
• Understanding competitor strategies and anticipating their moves.
• Enhancing product development and marketing strategies.
• Improving customer satisfaction by addressing unmet needs and preferences.

What are some common methods for gathering competitive intelligence?

Common methods for gathering competitive intelligence include:

• Publicly Available Information: Analyzing competitors' websites, press releases, financial reports, and social media activity.
• Customer Feedback: Collecting customer feedback to understand their preferences and perceptions of competitors.
• Industry Events: Attending trade shows, conferences, and webinars to gather insights from industry experts and competitors.
• Market Research: Conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups to gather detailed market and competitor information.

What are the ethical considerations in competitive intelligence?

Ethical considerations in competitive intelligence involve respecting legal boundaries and maintaining integrity. This includes:

• Avoiding espionage or illegal activities to gather information.
• Ensuring the information collected is from publicly available and legal sources.
• Being transparent about the use of competitive intelligence within the organization.

How can businesses effectively implement a competitive intelligence strategy?

Businesses can effectively implement a competitive intelligence strategy by:

• Establishing clear objectives and goals for the competitive intelligence program.
• Identifying key sources of information and setting up systematic data collection processes.
• Regularly analyze and update the information to reflect current market conditions.
• Integrating competitive intelligence insights into strategic planning and decision-making processes.

What tools and technologies can assist in competitive intelligence?

Several tools and technologies can assist in competitive intelligence, including:

• Data Analytics Platforms: Tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Google Analytics to analyze and visualize data.
• Market Research Tools: Platforms like SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics for surveys and gathering customer insights.
• Social Media Monitoring Tools: Tools like Hootsuite and Brandwatch to monitor competitors' social media activities.
• Competitive Intelligence Software: Solutions like Crayon and Owler track competitor activities and market trends.

How often should competitive intelligence activities be conducted?

Competitive intelligence activities should be ongoing and integrated into regular business processes. While some activities, such as market trend analysis, can be conducted quarterly or annually, continuous real-time monitoring of competitors and industry developments should ensure timely and relevant insights.

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