Introduction

In the age of startups and industry giants, keeping an eye on the competitive landscape has never been more critical. A growing number of organizations are developing within established industries creating new niches and sub-sections. In order to stay competitive, businesses have enlisted the assistance of competitive intelligence. 

 

Competitive intelligence, in a nutshell, is the act of gathering information and data around competing organizations within the same industry. This helps businesses understand their shortcomings, why their competitors are thriving, and understand the potential for better strategies. This information, however, is not easily accessible. With over 94% (SmallBizTrends) of businesses investing in some degree of CI, enlisting competitive intelligence services or competitive intelligence consulting agencies for well-rounded and more accurate results has never been more important. 

 

What is Competitive Intelligence 

 

Competitive intelligence plays a critical role in formulating impactful and efficient business strategies. It is the process of gathering and analyzing information about competitive organizations (other businesses operating within your field that share your customer prospects). CI helps drive better internal strategy decisions and implement stronger tactics by understanding external information and factors driving better strategic decisions. Businesses use this information to identify trends, untapped market gaps, and even forecast their competitors’ moves as a pre-emptive measure.  

 

In order to begin the process of securing the necessary information, deducing competitive organizations is step one. This process can be time-consuming and tedious without the right tools or professional insight. While a google search may prove fruitful, downsizing to specific niches can be aided by software like WhoRunsWhere.  

 

Once the competition has been identified, introducing monitoring tools to keep an eye on a competitor’s online activities is step two. The laborious process can be implemented through simple mechanisms like enabling google alerts or monitoring hashtags on social media. Additionally, tools on the market such as Meltwater and Owler assist with benchmarking business strategy according to competitor moves.  

 

Competitive intelligence and business intelligence, while different, go hand in hand. Business intelligence covers the tools and software an organization recruits to gather, store and analyze information that helps with better decision making. Business intelligence systems are able to uncover information around customer support, market research, competitive intelligence, and other statistical analysis methods that aid the process.  

 

Competitive Intelligence and Business Development 

 

Over 70% (JimmyNewson) of large-scale enterprises regret not factoring competitive intelligence and other intelligence-based solutions into their decision-making process. The reason is simple, harnessing competitive intelligence offers businesses the ability to broaden their scope of understanding within the industry they are in. In order to apply competitive intelligence to business development, it is important to know what to look for. In a marketing context, understanding where competition is directing their campaign efforts, and if this translates into stronger sales is imperative to for deducing where the next fruitful venture could stem from.  

 

Other benefits include; 

 

  • Creating a more factual and accurate basis about industry competitors for more accurate decision-making.  
  • Enhancing internal capabilities by boosting market time, market entry, and market defense. With a better understanding of the landscape, crafting products that are not only useful but hold their own against competitors is a simpler process.  
  • Improving decision-making ROI through decluttering business initiatives and prioritizing filling gaps within business environments definitely helps with stronger and more sustainable business development.  
  • Competitive intelligence helps organizations understand industry trends and possibly predict future moves. Introducing better methods as soon as the need arises keeps businesses ahead of competitors when they finally make a move to follow suit.  
  • With the precise, data-backed options and opportunities deduced by competitive intelligence, businesses are able to make better decisions and stand out when assessed against their competitors.  
  • Predictive behavior is now significantly easier to deduce. With competitive intelligence, organizations are able to anticipate their competitors’ moves and introduce better, stronger options to “beat them to the punch”.  

 

Additionally, using CI to supplement BD offers insight into a competitor’s strengths and weaknesses and a better understanding of customers and regulators. With this information, organizations are able to make both minor and major scale changes to facilitate better product/service offerings. If competitors are doing better than the organization, it gives them an opportunity to truly understand why the business stands out and what the company can do to implement better practices and deliver stronger value to their customers.  

 

Introducing competitive intelligence has been especially fruitful within the technology, healthcare, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, finance, manufacturing and industrial sectors. These are all industries with little variance between their offerings that make the competition more fierce and companies harder to segregate.  

 

The premise around introducing competitor intelligence into business development is to offer businesses an opportunity to create a more unique identity for themselves. By understanding what other key players within the community are doing and where they are succeeding and/or failing, businesses are given the ability to pick and choose strategies and elements to incorporate. Customizing these elements to suit the organization is critical.  

 

All businesses are different, with an array of missions, visions and values. It is important to align prospective strategies with the same to keep corporate identity unique and true to form. While achieving profitability and stronger margins is definitely a desirable output, competitive intelligence is one factor that should be considered when formulating business development strategies. There are a number of other concerns a business should account for in order to make a strong impact not only on generated revenue but also on employees, customers and other pertinent stakeholders.  

 

Conclusion 

 

With the assistance of competitive intelligence, over 56% (JimmyNewson) of executives were able to adequately maintain a keen eye on competition and craft plans to venture into new markets within the following three years. The value proposition generated by competitive intelligence is undeniable. The simplest way to stay ahead of the curve is to understand the direction the curve is taking, and the information provided by other key players within the industry is the best way to understand how the same is shaping up. Recruiting competitive intelligence harnessing tools should be an integral part of forming strong business strategies.