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. Because it enables firms to comprehend their competitive environment and the opportunities and challenges it brings, competitive intelligence is crucial. 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—the kind that has an ongoing impact on marketing and communications strategy—is more than simply checking a box. We do believe the constrains which our customers face related to lack of authentic source for analyzing the data. Well, guess what! Our value proposition is all about helping the clients in 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.
What are the common types of competitive intelligence?
There are two basic categories of competitive intelligence: tactical and strategic. While strategic efforts assist with long-term issues like significant opportunities and threats, tactical competitive intelligence focuses more on short-term concerns like improving profitability.
- Tactical (a short-term procedure that aims to contribute to the resolution of difficulties such as winning market share or boosting earnings)
- Strategic (assists with long-term concerns such as important threats and opportunities that a firm may face). Now that you’ve identified the major categories, it’s time to investigate the sources of CI.
How Competitive Intelligence Works?
Competitive intelligence collects actionable information from a variety of published and unpublished sources in an efficient and ethical manner in an ideal environment, a corporation would successfully employ competitive intelligence by developing a complete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 effect rival businesses. It also demonstrates how distributors and other stakeholders may be impacted, as well as how new technologies can quickly disprove any assumption.
Our legit approaches for studying competitive landscape
The overall competitive landscape depends on how the data is been fetched and what type of data is been presented. Our approach includes having a primary and secondary analysis of company’s real time condition. Our approach is always to focus on the historical data which gives our analyst a better platform to forecast their performance and other strategies (Procurement analysis, M&A etc.). The data is generated through official sources which includes company profiles, annual reports, SEC filings and so forth. We believe in delivering the right type of data to our clients which helps them to focus on their core competencies and also focus on the industry in terms of how they can achieve a competitive advantage.
Importance of competitive intelligence
The market is constantly changing, 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.
- better resource allocation
- Anticipating competitors’ moves
- recognize and analyze industry trends in order to make future decisions.
- accelerate the product launch process.
- collect information and insights about expectations, trends, and technology. assess strengths and shortcomings.
- Make sound business decisions.
Benefits of Competitive Intelligence:
- Create anti-competitive techniques for one or more competitors.
- Prepare to launch a new product, enter a new market, or take another market-related strategic activity.
- Prepare for future market opportunities and disruptions by anticipating and planning for them.
- Create corporate or company division strategies.
- Examine the efficacy of competitors’ market positioning and product message.
- Compare your organization to others.
Competitive Intelligence vs. Market Intelligence
Although both competition and market information aid in strategic planning, they differ slightly. The former is more concerned with competitors’ strategy, whilst the latter is more concerned with the market. Market intelligence considers the big picture, whereas competitive analysis examines the competitor’s strategy. The latter, on the other hand, is a superset, or a larger group of the former.