In a commercial sense, competitive Intelligence is about gaining insights from competitors to help improve your products and services. It can also uncover new opportunities or mitigate risks.
The most important driving theme found in the CI sample from https://www.aqute.com/competitive-intelligence is the Innovation cluster. These documents mainly deal with analysing the impact of CI on innovation, either in terms of new product development or changes to firm strategy.
Market Research
Both market research and competitive intelligence are centered on gathering information to support business decisions. However, the two concepts differ in terms of scope, objectives and methodologies.
While competitive intelligence focuses on competitor analysis, market research is more broader in nature and includes both primary and secondary data. Market research is often based on survey research and the analysis of publicly-available information, including annual reports, investor presentation, customer reviews, industry publications, and other public documents. Interviews with industry leaders, consumers, and competitors are also conducted to understand current trends.
The main difference between the two types of research lies in their general nature, whereas competitive intelligence focuses on a specific group of competitors. While competitive intelligence is a continual process, market research can be done on a more ad-hoc basis, such as weekly, biweekly, or monthly, depending on the circumstances.
Competitive intelligence gathers information from a variety sources in order to gain insights into the products, pricing strategies and marketing tactics of competitors. These are then used to identify a company’s strengths and weaknesses. In a detailed competitive intelligence analysis, this can include interviewing rivals (although it is not always ethical or possible to do so, especially if senior managers are involved).
Models of industry and product forecasting are also used to gather competitive intelligence. These models provide insight into future trends which may present opportunities or risks. Using these models, companies can prepare for market shifts before they occur.
Market research and competitive intelligence can be valuable, but they are not foolproof. Incorrect data interpretation and faulty assumptions may lead to strategic decisions that negatively impact the competitive position of a business. To this end, a team of competitive intelligence must be vigilant in their monitoring of the industry landscape as well as their competitors.
This is often done by creating a framework to guide the analysis and interpretation data, like a PESTLE Model. This framework examines all the factors that impact your industry, including those related to politics, economics, social, technology, and law. This model is often supplemented with industry specific data sources, such as market and consumer reviews, to ensure that your intelligence is as comprehensive as possible.
Social Media Monitoring
Competitive intelligence includes keeping a close watch on the activities of competitors and the sentiments of customers. With social media monitoring, brands can stay on top of new trends and developments in their industry and identify potential opportunities to expand their reach. It also helps them quickly respond to negative feedback or complaints to maintain a positive brand image and avoid any reputational crises.
Businesses can set up search criteria to track mentions about their brand or products on social media, news websites and blogs. They can then understand how their audience perceives the brand and what needs to be done to increase brand awareness. They can also identify the most effective marketing campaigns, key influencers, and upcoming industry trends to create and share content that resonates with their target audiences.
A competitive intelligence tool like Agorapulse enables you to set up customized, automated alerts that track conversations about your brand, competitors, and industry topics. This allows you to monitor brand mentions and sentiment on a regular basis. It also provides valuable insights which help you fine-tune marketing strategies. You can also monitor social media to find key words or hashtags that will help you uncover current and future trends. This information can be used to create and share relevant content in order to stay ahead.
Rival IQ offers real-time monitoring and sentiment analysis. This tool allows you to identify marketing campaigns that are most effective and identify potential customer problems before they become a crisis. It helps you identify the market gaps and analyze the share of your competitors’ voice to develop better business plans.
Owler is another social media monitoring tool. It provides detailed profiles on companies, including revenue estimates, employee numbers, and the latest news. This data can be used to compare your company with similar companies in your industry, and identify areas for improvement.
Industry Research
Research in the industry goes beyond the old cliche “know your enemy.” It takes into account the finer points of competitors’ business plans. It analyzes the marketplaces, customers, suppliers, distribution channels and partners of competitors.
This type of research is essential for businesses who want to keep up with their competition in the race for share of market and those who want to be ahead of the curve on innovation. It also helps businesses find new opportunities in their industries. This type of market research can be used to find out about other segments within the industry which are growing if you feel that a certain segment is becoming oversaturated.
It depends on your (or the shareholders’) goals when deciding how much time and attention to devote to industry research. If you’re focusing on the top three competitors in your industry, competitive intelligence may focus on this group. It will examine their marketing strategies, weaknesses and strengths, and how they’re positioned in the marketplace to see if it can help you gain market share. It will also consider their management assumptions, including goals, strategies, corporate cultures, leadership backgrounds and values/missions.
Market Research, on the other hand, tends to focus more on the big picture and is more concerned with identifying trends which can have an impact on market share and consumer behaviour. If your competitors are implementing AI into their business models, you might find it useful to learn about the impact that technology has on consumers and how they can use this information to inform their strategies.
It’s important to not focus on one aspect of competitor analysis too much, or you may miss the forest for the tree. So, make sure that your competitive intelligence team is always looking at the big picture and is comparing notes with your market research teams to ensure they are capturing all of the pertinent information in their analyses.
Industry Trends
When analyzing competitors, it’s important to look beyond marketing tactics and consider how they align with industry trends. This can help you understand the evolution of your competitors’ products, services and what customers may require in the future. Keeping an eye on industry trends also helps you stay ahead of the curve by identifying new opportunities for your business.
Although all publicly available data on your competitors can technically be considered competitive information, it is not very useful unless the information is analyzed in a context. To make sure you’re gaining insight that can actually improve your business, prioritize your research goals and only pay attention to sources that support those goals. This will save you time and energy while also ensuring your research is effective.
A clear understanding of your competitors will help you create more strategic marketing and sales campaigns. For example, if you know your competitor is offering a service that is missing from your own offerings, you can use this knowledge to create a campaign designed to address that gap and win new business. This will give you a competitive edge over your competitors and position you as the ideal choice for your target customer.
You should also track the impact of competitive intelligence activities in order to show leadership their value. This can include metrics such as increased competitive confidence among sales teams, revenue impact from more informed and effective strategies for winning new clients, or time savings from having access to quick and easy insights.
With all this in mind, it’s clear that competitive intelligence is an essential practice for businesses of any size. It allows both established brands and startups to maintain their market position. The best competitive intelligence tools make it easier than ever to collect and analyze data from multiple sources, giving your team the insight they need to grow your business.
