Competitive intelligence, also known as corporate intelligence, is the capacity to compile, examine, and apply data on clients, consumers, and other market elements that support a company’s competitive edge. Competitive intelligence is crucial because it enables firms to comprehend their competitive environment and the opportunities and challenges it brings. Therefore, businesses evaluate data in order to build profitable and productive company strategies.
Competitive intelligence sometimes resembles a task on a list rather than an essential company function. You might read analyst reports, look through some CRM data, and perhaps take a quick look at the social media profiles and websites of your rivals. The sales team’s battle cards may even be developed from there, with an annual update.
However, effective competitive marketing intelligence—which has an ongoing impact on marketing and communications strategy—is more than simply checking a box. We do believe the constraints that our customers face are related to a lack of authentic sources for analyzing the data.
Well, guess what! Our value proposition is all about helping the clients by providing the data related to the competitive intelligence, which they can use to add value and to improvise their business models and, for sure, their revenue pools as well.
There are two basic categories of competitive intelligence: tactical and strategic. While strategic efforts assist with long-term issues like significant opportunities and threats, on the other hand, tactical competitive intelligence focuses more on short-term concerns like improving profitability.
Now that you’ve identified the major categories, it’s time to investigate the sources of CI.
Competitive intelligence collects actionable information from a variety of published and unpublished sources in an efficient and ethical manner. In an ideal environment, a corporation would successfully employ competitive intelligence by developing a complete enough portrait of the market to anticipate and respond to problems and concerns before they arise.
Competitive intelligence means different things to different people and departments in each firm. For example, it could relate to tactical guidance on how to best bid for a big contract to a salesperson. To top management, it could entail developing unique marketing insights that can be exploited to capture market share against a difficult opponent.
Competitive intelligence goes beyond the simple adage “know your competitor.” Rather, it is a deep-dive activity in which organizations learn about their competitors’ business plans, including the clients they service and the markets in which they operate. Competitive intelligence also looks into how certain events affect rival businesses. It also demonstrates how distributors and other stakeholders may be impacted, as well as how new technologies can quickly disprove any assumption.
The market is constantly changing, and you must keep up. Estimates and assumptions cannot be used to build a successful business. Competitive intelligence allows you to comprehend your competitors’ motivations and behavior. Understanding their mindset and goals allows you to shape your product development, pricing, and brand positioning. The foundation of your company’s strategy is competitive intelligence.
Create anti-competitive techniques for one or more competitors.
Although both competition and market information aid in strategic planning, they differ slightly. The former is more concerned with competitors’ strategy, while the latter is more concerned with the market. Market intelligence considers the big picture, whereas competitive analysis examines the competitor’s strategy. Conversely, the latter is a superset of a larger group of the former.