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Companies need to know their competition to achieve their objectives. Competitive intelligence services from www.aqute.com/competitive-intelligence analyze and gather information to provide business teams with actionable insights.
Startups are a great example of how competitive Intelligence can lead to disruption. They leverage technology, consumer insights, and other resources to outperform traditional companies.
Gathering Information
Before a team of competitive intelligence can dig into their data and analyze what their competitors are doing, they must first get to know the terrain. What this means is to find out what information exists within your business, whether in the heads and CRM of your peers or even in the notes in the drawers.
The more information that a company collects, the better. It’s important to prioritize the types of information. For example, a retailer shouldn’t waste time gathering data on competitor physical locations when it can be more useful to learn how the competitors operate their online marketplaces.
Ultimately, the goal of competitive intelligence is to help businesses avoid being blindsided by their rivals. This can be accomplished through a number of tactical strategies, including identifying potential threats or opportunities for business growth. Tactical intelligence allows a company to create more targeted marketing campaigns, and improve its product offerings.
Public sources are a great way to gather information about competitors. Information such as customer reviews, competitor announcements and press releases, social media posts, and published financial statements is available. Public web data can also be used to monitor and collect information about the effectiveness of competitor ads.
The supply chain of your competitors is another good source of information. For example, learning the type of logistics partner that a competitor uses reveals what sort of B2B services it plans to utilize in the future and can reveal valuable insights about a company’s strategy.
Depending on the industry, it may be beneficial for a company to join trade associations or attend webinars and conferences to stay up-to-date on what other companies in their market are doing. Many competitive intelligence teams also rely heavily on feedback from their customers to gain a better understanding of the marketing tactics of their competitors and how to compete with them. This feedback can be in the form or win/loss interviews, customer surveys and focus groups. Competitive intelligence can be viewed as the ultimate form market research. It is a valuable tool for marketing, sales and strategic planning departments.
Analyzing Information
The goal of competitive intelligence is to combine all the information you have collected. This analysis is what sets CI apart from other types of market research, as it connects the dots between current business practices and future threats, opportunities, or regulatory changes that could affect your company. The results of the analysis will then be used to make strategic decisions in order to keep your company competitive and on track.
One of the most important aspects of analyzing information is to determine what kind of data you need to gather in order to find the best insights. While some competitive intelligence analysts prefer to stick with quantitative data (i.e. spreadsheets and graphs), a lot of this work is qualitative, such as interviewing customers for feedback on their experience with a competitor or taking notes during a sales presentation to understand the buying process. You can also use publicly available web data to gather relevant info.
After you have a good understanding of the products and services of your competitors, you can determine their strengths as well as weaknesses. Compare them to your own. This is a crucial part of any strategic planning process, and it is also one of the reasons why CI as an industry is growing. It helps businesses get a better understanding of the current landscape.
You should also be able to identify the different kinds of competitors that you have in your field and what their goals are. For example, if you have direct competitors, you will want to know who they are as well as their marketing strategies. You may also want to include aspirational competitors (firms with the potential to compete if their business plan is successful) or perceived competitors (firms who are not directly in competition with you but have the ability to influence your customers).
The final part of this puzzle involves being able analyze what the data means for you and your company. This requires a strong opinion and the ability of other departments to have a clear and defensible framework. Having an opinion also means being prepared to be wrong sometimes, as competitors are always changing their game plan and introducing new products and initiatives.
Making Decisions
Competitive intelligence services have become a necessity for companies that want to succeed in a business environment that is becoming more ambitious and progressive. Working with a partner who is a good fit will help your business gain valuable insights, make informed decisions and refine strategies so that you can stay ahead of the competition.
The first step of competitive intelligence is to identify your competitors. This includes identifying your direct competitors, aspirational competitors (firms within the same industry who don’t compete directly with you for customers), or perceived rivals (businesses which come up during sales discovery and don’t directly challenge you). Once you’ve identified your competitors, it’s time to gather information about them. This can be achieved by using software and tools to perform competitor analysis. In order to be most effective, you need both primary and second-hand data. Primary sources include customer feedback and interviews with employees or experts in the industry. Industry reports are also a good source. Secondary sources include firmographics, techngraphics, social media, financial information such as annual report, analyst presentations, SEC filings as well as industry forums.
Once you have gathered all this information about your competitors, you will need to analyze it and put it into context for your own business. This will require assessing both their strengths and weaknesses as well as yours. For example, if you notice that your competitors are offering better customer service, you may want to implement a similar strategy in order to increase customer retention and acquisition. If you see your competitors selling new and innovative product, you might want to develop something similar to remain competitive in the market.
Regular monitoring of the competitive landscape will also allow you to identify any opportunities or threats that could affect your business in the future. It can be anything, from shifting consumer preferences to new technologies or market entrants. This information is at your fingertips, giving you the chance to react quickly and strategically.
Increase Market Share
You must accept that the competitive landscape will always change, no matter what industry you are in. The faster you can identify changes in the marketplace and react, the better your chances are of beating your competition and achieving your business goals. This is where Competitive intelligence services come in. They are a powerful tool that provides data-driven insight to empower you to respond more proactively to the moves of your competitors and increase your share of market more effectively than ever.
As long as you don’t cross into the realms of corporate espionage (like wiretapping your rival’s phone lines or hacking their customer database), you can gather a lot of useful competitive intelligence through a variety of ethical, legal sources. This includes public records, social media and online activities, trade shows and conferences, customer reviews, and competitor press releases and announcements. The best CI tools enable you to automate the collection and analysis of these information sources and deliver results in real time.
Once you have a good understanding of your competitors’ product development and marketing strategies, you can begin to identify potential opportunities for differentiation in the marketplace. You can use competitive information to develop and implement campaigns that resonate well with your target market, and that deliver a value proposition that is hard for your competitors.
Depending on your field, competitive intelligence will also help you to anticipate trends and changes. For example, the pharmaceutical industry relies on CI to monitor competitors’ drug development and patent expirations, new market entrants, and customer preference shifts in the market. And the energy industry uses CI to keep track of regulatory changes, technological advancements in renewable energy production, and competitor pricing strategies.
When evaluating Competitive Intelligence services providers, ensure that they have experience in your industry so that you can get accurate and actionable insight. You should also implement processes and systems that will ensure the accuracy and reliability in the data you collect. This intelligence can then be incorporated into your strategic planning. This will enable you to align your competitive intelligence with your strategic goals. You can then make informed decisions that lead to sustainable growth and competitive advantage.
