Competitive intelligence is imperative for businesses to benchmark activities and effectiveness against those of competitors. It helps to get a clear view of the Competitive landscape. Knowledge of your competitors also gives you the edge to continue improving, so you are able to set your company apart and take it in a different direction based on what competitors are doing.
Though we understand the importance of Competitive Intelligence, the implementation, and execution, however, is always a challenge. Most of the companies either resort to desk research or pay a bomb for an existing report, which may have some relevance from the overall industry perspective. However, it fails to address the core functional, financial, and strategic areas, which are critical for an organization to have.
What is Competitive intelligence definition?
- Competitive intelligence analysis is the practice of collecting and using Competitive data to gain a competitive edge. The information helps businesses stay a step ahead of their rivals in a market. Some important factors of competitive intelligence analysis are: Analyzing the gaps and tracking the performance metrics to align strategies in order to maximize growth potential.
- Determining both the macro and micro insights through extensive data research and reporting.
- Understanding and utilizing data for preparing insights and recommendations to stay ahead of the competition.
Competitive intelligence gathering techniques:
Primary Research is a technique for Competitive intelligence gathering, an answer to that, which most of the organizations struggle to achieve either due to a lack of capabilities in-house or due to challenges in finding companies, which specialize in getting Competitive intelligence using extensive Primary Research.
Competitive intelligence analysis can be grouped into two main types –
- Tactical, which is short-term, such as capturing market share or increasing revenues, and
- Strategic, which is long-term, such as key risks and opportunities facing the enterprise
Benefits of Competitive intelligence analysis
Gap analysis: Identifying market trends, competitors’ edge and the offerings other businesses are providing. The gap between what you offer and what the market expects can be reduced by leveraging competitive intelligence reports.
Better decision making: A Competitive intelligence report will provide insights and recommendations according to which smart and effective decisions can be made.
Reduced assumptions and guessing: Competitive intelligence reports are solid enough to give insights about the market, reducing the time and efforts wasted on guessing the next move of a Competitive which might go wrong.
Effective product launch: Competitive intelligence services can help businesses in market entry and market defence by saving the cost and time spent in understanding the market.
Forecasting maneuvers: Competitive intelligence techniques are useful to understand what competitors are doing, but also to help in forecasting the next probable move of your competitors, and help in planning maneuvers in strategies accordingly.
Over the last several years, SG Analytics has been helping organizations across industry verticals in defining, gathering, cleaning, analyzing, interpreting, and visualizing their competitors’ data. Thus, it enables the C-suite and other key decision-makers to make strategic decisions moving forward.
Primary Research at SG Analytics can get you answers to troublesome questions such as:
- Who are the key customers of your competitor?
- How do competitors push their offerings in the market?
- Which services competitors focus on within the various categories?
- Which pricing strategy do competitors use?
- What is the market share of key competitors by product or service?
- What is the key distribution model being used by your competitor?
Summing it up
Running a business means constantly balancing the costs and benefits of projects, actions, and even measures. It is always tempting to cut costs whenever possible, but we also strongly believe that Competitive intelligence is the wrong niche to save money on. The value of the gained insights easily surpasses the costs for most companies.
