Why Competitive Intelligence Comes From Everywhere With All Opinions Taken Into Account

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Why Competitive Intelligence comes from everywhere with all opinions taken into account
In order to stay ahead of the competition, it’s important to have a Competitive Intelligence program in place. That’s why Competitive Intelligence comes from everywhere, with all opinions taken into account. Competitive Intelligence is the process of monitoring your competition and gathering information about them to help you make better decisions in your business.

There are many sources of Competitive Intelligence. Your competitors with their websites and social media are a good start. But so are other businesses in your industry, suppliers, customers, and even the government. The most important thing to remember is that competitive Intelligence comes from everywhere.

Helps in your marketplace
Competitive Intelligence can help you in your marketplace. And to be successful in your marketplace, it is important to understand what is happening in your industry. Competitive Intelligence can help you do this by providing you with information on your competitors’ products, marketing strategies, and financials. However, ...
... it’s important to remember that Competitive Intelligence comes from everywhere – not just from your competitors. You can find competitive Intelligence from sources such as trade shows, customer surveys, and social media.

But the most important thing to understand is that Competitive Intelligence comes from everywhere and everyone. Everywhere in your market but also from within your business. Why? Everyone has an opinion and a perspective on a viewpoint or situation.

CEO hears all
The CEO hears many things from many people inside and outside the business. And it comes into your business as:

Facts
Opinion
Theories
Rumours
Sales pitches
Gossip
Data
Reasons why you won or lost a piece of business
Wild ass guesswork
Your business development teams will hear things or find information during pre-call research. And some of it will be gold dust, and some will be as worth as much as the troubled Rouble.

The trouble is that you will not know what information is good and bad without actively looking for and then collating it and analysing it. You subconsciously go with the information you want to be good and reject the bad.

You may think Competitor A is a real threat to your bottom line with its excellent marketing and budget. But your Business Development team don’t think so. They think Competitor B or product B is what they are worried about. And they dont worry about Competitor A as they know how to deal with those jokers.

Assuming your teams have discussed Competitors A and B., you may disagree on the best way forward. And, of course, that’s a big assumption to make in some businesses. Some organisations will have one team thinking Competitor A is the danger. And the other believes Competitor B is going to kill them. And neither will ever know each other’s opinion.

What is Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive intelligence is the finding, sorting and critical analysis of information. To make sense of what’s happening and why. Predict what’s going to happen and give the options to help you control the outcome. Competitive intelligence offers more certainty, competitive advantage, insight, growth & security.
Opinions get in the way
Opinions get in the way of creating new opportunities. You may have someone in your team who has worked in a different sector. They are telling you about an excellent opportunity that you really must get into. Then someone else pipes up, saying you would be crazy not to get into this market. They have read some marketing analysis after seeing an impressive conference talk. And it’s the future.

Then you FD comes along, shaking her head, looking at these ideas and asking how we will pay for it all. All are going to cost money to move forward. And she reminds you that current projects are not hitting expectations either.

With all this information coming to you from many directions, who will be brave enough to make a decision? Who is going to assess the information and analyse it? And then remove the inbuilt bias within the information – including yours?

Many tech leaders don’t usually have the know-how to isolate competitive information. Never mind knowing how to use it. And even less have the time to look out for it. So they purchase a platform or get a junior member of staff to look at it for them. And surprisingly, they dont see the value of the results.

Half hashed approach to Competitive Intelligence
Or they decide that they want to do something about Competitive Intelligence. So give a new member of staff the responsibility along with her day job. Realise they can’t do everything, so they ask to find help. They find help, but the tech leader wants proof that the help is value for money. So they make sure they try and get an agency for next to nothing. And when the agency says no, but we can do this for this, the conversation ends. And zero Competitive Intelligence benefit is achieved.

However, their competitors are having a field day. They see Competitive Intelligence for what it is. Irreplaceable. They realise, and we quote from a client that:

“Competitive Intelligence is a bit like Air-Con and Power Steering in your motorcar. Once you’ve benefited from it, there’s no going back”.

So looking for basic information should be obvious. Websites, review sites and big databases. But that’s 0.005% of what’s required to benefit from Competitive Intelligence.

If you keep looking, all you get is more information. You are soon disappointed because all you have is lots of information. So now you think, well, there were a few “nice to knows”, but Competitive Intelligence is not worth the effort.

Synthesis
To make tons of information piles into something useful, you must synthesise it. That’s breaking the information down into smaller associated bits and putting them into relevant piles.

Look for patterns and describe what you see.
What is the information telling you?
What’s happening with your competitor or market?
What are you not seeing?
Are there any other patterns? Can you break them down and put them into different piles?
Then you will be at least beginning to see why Competitive Intelligence is so powerful and necessary to gain a competitive advantage.

Why Competitive Intelligence comes from everywhere with all opinions taken into account
This article asked to stay ahead of the competition why Competitive Intelligence comes from everywhere with all opinions taken into account.

In conclusion, Competitive Intelligence is essential to success in the marketplace. It can help you understand your competition, identify opportunities and threats, and make better business decisions. However, it’s essential to remember that Competitive Intelligence comes from many sources, both inside and outside your market. So be sure to keep your eyes and ears open and constantly gather information to stay ahead of the competition.

Art by Mike Baumeister