Why Competitive Intelligence is powerful and needed for your competitive advantage

Why Competitive Intelligence is powerful and needed for your competitive advantage

Competitive Intelligence is a vital tool for any business. We ask why Competitive Intelligence is powerful and needed for your competitive advantage. Making informed decisions is hard if you don’t truly understand your business environment. Every experienced marketer has heard of Competitive Intelligence, but Less knows its real power. Often Business Intelligence and Competitor Analysis are confused with Competitive Intelligence. 

Now, admittedly, in some respects, these terms could perhaps overlap with each other. Still, the Competitive Intelligence process is far too distinct not to stand out on its own. So, this begs the question, what is Competitive Intelligence? 

What actually is Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive Intelligence is a process that involves gathering information on your company’s competitors. Analysing your findings and using them to your advantage. Competitive Intelligence is entirely legal. So, done right, there’s no need to worry about the ethical side either. After all, there’s nothing wrong with getting ahead of your competition. Just don’t go through any of their bins looking for secrets. Joke aside, even if you did find the secrets you were looking for, you would not be able to use them anyway. So why put yourself at risk of a charge of corporate espionage? Not a great look on your LinkedIn profile. 

There are several groups Competitive Intelligence focuses on. Aside from competitors, there are also: 

Your customers. Other stakeholders like their management and culture, markets and products could benefit from such a tool.

The primary purpose of Competitive Intelligence is to understand your business’s external environment. So that you can do whatever is necessary to compete against it. Or decide to avoid competing in their pool. But taking Business Intelligence, for example, we see it also aims to obtain information and tends to sway toward studying internal data. And Competitor Analysis differentiates from Competitive Intelligence as it tends to evaluate competitors rather than delve deeper into their bigger picture.

What is the importance of Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive Intelligence is almost vital for the success of any business. For a business to survive, it must adopt a Competitive Intelligence strategy. Advances in technology and innovation and you can’t lose track of what’s happening. Regardless of your company’s size, you will need to be aware of the changes in your environment. A failure to react to such changes could bear consequences. So this means that Competitive Intelligence is the number one solution.

This is our definition:

How can you conduct Competitive Intelligence?

All companies, big and small, have what it takes to adopt Competitive Intelligence. Gathering information from many sources is always the best approach to take. These sources include:

• Conferences
• patent databases
• news media
• Your customers
• Industry experts

User-generated content is at an all-time high on forums and websites. More and more information has become accessible. This has paved the way for ‘information overload’. This has given companies a reason to obtain and analyse data at their disposal. And via ever complicated tools and platforms to just confuse anyone And, without a doubt, these tools efficiently bring results from the data obtained.

Why Competitive Intelligence is your way forward…

With markets constantly changing, getting faster and more innovative than ever. The secret to having a successful business lies with Competitive Intelligence. Organisations can expand their horizons by knowing about their external environment. This would be through the deep analyse of everything around them. Competitive Intelligence is the key to a timely reaction to any threats that may emerge. With sources of information growing, companies are deciding to take a strategic approach. 

Do something with the Competitive Intelligence insight

We have seen it in the past. And no doubt we will see it in the future. First, there’s massive praise for our work “amazing”. Or “how did you find that out” and “Octopus has delivered some great work here. Then nothing. Nadda, zilch, silence. The client doesn’t do anything with the report. 

Ultimately Competitive Intelligence is a waste of time if nothing is done about it. This lack of action and desire to change is why Competitive Intelligence fails. And then, no surprise, what gets the blame from finance a few months later?

The main reason for the lack of action is usually based on the lack of desire to change. Or that the senior team, specifically the CEO, have not bought into the process, project or the potential change. Sometimes the CEO does not read the report, and they let someone else tell them about the project. But of course, the message is filtered to fit the message of the person telling the story. 

It is important to maximise the impact of the insight. The company’s CEO and management team must be briefed on the project and commit to supporting the Competitive Intelligence team with their backing. Emphasis must be on what the CEO needs to do to make the most of insight and how they will gain a competitive advantage. 

This can be challenging, especially if the Competitive Intelligence team or intern has just searched the internet. And focused on what has happened. 

All Competitive Intelligence must be focused on what’s next. What’s next regarding a competitor, market, new sector, or product? And what’s next for the company itself? And the company has to be prepared to take action. 

Why Competitive Intelligence is powerful and needed for your competitive advantage

In conclusion, Competitive Intelligence is vital for any effective strategy, from your CEO’s future direction to tactical things like SEO or digital marketing. Making informed decisions is hard if you haven’t truly understood your business field. Understanding the competition can create a more compelling future-facing strategy. And give you the edge over your rivals. We asked why Competitive Intelligence is powerful and needed for your competitive advantage.

Why Competitive Intelligence is Powerful And Needed For Your Competitive Advantage

Why Competitive Intelligence is powerful and needed for your competitive advantage

Competitive Intelligence is a vital tool for any business. We ask why Competitive Intelligence is powerful and needed for your competitive advantage. Making informed decisions is hard if you don’t truly understand your business environment. Every experienced marketer has heard of Competitive Intelligence, but Less knows its real power. Often Business Intelligence and Competitor Analysis are confused with Competitive Intelligence. 

Now, admittedly, in some respects, these terms could perhaps overlap with each other. Still, the Competitive Intelligence process is far too distinct not to stand out on its own. So, this begs the question, what is Competitive Intelligence? 

What actually is Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive Intelligence is a process that involves gathering information on your company’s competitors. Analysing your findings and using them to your advantage. Competitive Intelligence is entirely legal. So, done right, there’s no need to worry about the ethical side either. After all, there’s nothing wrong with getting ahead of your competition. Just don’t go through any of their bins looking for secrets. Joke aside, even if you did find the secrets you were looking for, you would not be able to use them anyway. So why put yourself at risk of a charge of corporate espionage? Not a great look on your LinkedIn profile. 

There are several groups Competitive Intelligence focuses on. Aside from competitors, there are also your customers. And other stakeholders like their management and culture, markets and products could benefit from such a tool.

The primary purpose of Competitive Intelligence is to understand your business’s external environment. So that you can do whatever is necessary to compete against it. Or decide to avoid competing in their pool. But taking Business Intelligence, for example, we see it also aims to obtain information and tends to sway toward studying internal data. And Competitor Analysis differentiates from Competitive Intelligence as it tends to evaluate competitors rather than delve deeper into their bigger picture.

What is the importance of Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive Intelligence is almost vital for the success of any business. For a business to survive, it must adopt a Competitive Intelligence strategy. Advances in technology and innovation and you can’t lose track of what’s happening. Regardless of your company’s size, you will need to be aware of the changes in your environment. A failure to react to such changes could bear consequences. So this means that Competitive Intelligence is the number one solution.

This is our definition:

How can you conduct Competitive Intelligence?

All companies, big and small, have what it takes to adopt Competitive Intelligence. Gathering information from many sources is always the best approach to take. These sources include:

• Conferences
• patent databases
• news media
• Your customers
• Industry experts

User-generated content is at an all-time high on forums and websites. More and more information has become accessible. This has paved the way for ‘information overload’. This has given companies a reason to obtain and analyse data at their disposal. And via ever complicated tools and platforms to just confuse anyone And, without a doubt, these tools efficiently bring results from the data obtained.

Why Competitive Intelligence is your way forward…

With markets constantly changing, getting faster and more innovative than ever. The secret to having a successful business lies with Competitive Intelligence. Organisations can expand their horizons by knowing about their external environment. This would be through the deep analyse of everything around them. Competitive Intelligence is the key to a timely reaction to any threats that may emerge. With sources of information growing, companies are deciding to take a strategic approach. 

Do something with the Competitive Intelligence insight

We have seen it in the past. And no doubt we will see it in the future. First, there’s massive praise for our work “amazing”. Or “how did you find that out” and “Octopus has delivered some great work here. Then nothing. Nadda, zilch, silence. The client doesn’t do anything with the report. 

Ultimately Competitive Intelligence is a waste of time if nothing is done about it. This lack of action and desire to change is why Competitive Intelligence fails. And then, no surprise, what gets the blame from finance a few months later?

The main reason for the lack of action is usually based on the lack of desire to change. Or that the senior team, specifically the CEO, have not bought into the process, project or the potential change. Sometimes the CEO does not read the report, and they let someone else tell them about the project. But of course, the message is filtered to fit the message of the person telling the story. 

It is important to maximise the impact of the insight. The company’s CEO and management team must be briefed on the project and commit to supporting the Competitive Intelligence team with their backing. Emphasis must be on what the CEO needs to do to make the most of insight and how they will gain a competitive advantage. 

This can be challenging, especially if the Competitive Intelligence team or intern has just searched the internet. And focused on what has happened. 

All Competitive Intelligence must be focused on what’s next. What’s next regarding a competitor, market, new sector, or product? And what’s next for the company itself? And the company has to be prepared to take action. 

Why Competitive Intelligence is powerful and needed for your competitive advantage

In conclusion, Competitive Intelligence is vital for any effective strategy, from your CEO’s future direction to tactical things like SEO or digital marketing. Making informed decisions is hard if you haven’t truly understood your business field. Understanding the competition can create a more compelling future-facing strategy. And give you the edge over your rivals. We asked why Competitive Intelligence is powerful and needed for your competitive advantage.

Art by Kamran Chaudhry. Words by Billy Devereux-Dixon

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Created on Aug 6th 2022 11:07. Viewed 248 times.

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