Competitive intelligence (CI) is the process of staying informed about your industry's competitors. It is important to your company's success because it provides insight into the strategies, strengths, and weaknesses of your competitors. As a result, it enables you to make more informed business decisions that benefit your organisation. This blog post will provide an overview of how competitive intelligence can help your business thrive, as well as some strategies for maximising its benefits.
According to a CRAYON and SCIP industry survey conducted between December 2020 and February 2021, 84 percent of businesses believe their sector has recently become more competitive. Companies are investing heavily in competitive intelligence (CI) to maintain and expand market share as a result of increased competition. Over two-thirds of organisations are increasing their CI workforce and budgets in 2021, as 61 percent of all businesses see a direct benefit of CI on revenue growth.[1]
What is Competitive Intelligence?
Competitive intelligence (CI) is the process of gathering information about your industry and the businesses of your competitors to inform strategic and tactical business decisions. While the term "intelligence" may imply some shadowy activity, CI is simply the process of learning as much as you can about your competitors and other industry players. Competitive intelligence is a method of gathering information about your industry, competitors, and customers strategically. CI assists you in staying one step ahead of the competition to remain profitable and grow your business. Gathering information about your competitors' strategies, strengths, weaknesses, potential areas for growth, and potential partnerships is one example of competitive intelligence.
“The term competitive intelligence embeddedness (CIE) is defined as "the extent to which management and employees incorporate CI into daily routines so that actionable knowledge is transferred throughout the organisation" in the academic study Competitive intelligence embeddedness: Drivers and performance, which was published in 2019 and was based on a survey of 124 strategic decision-makers.”[2]
The importance of competitive intelligence
Competitive intelligence is an essential component of every business strategy. Whether you’re just launching a new product or hoping to expand internationally, CI has something to offer you. By staying up to date on your competitors, you can better position yourself to win over your customer base and achieve success. Competitive intelligence gives you insight into your competitors’ strategies, strengths, and weaknesses so you can make more informed decisions for your business. Here are just some of the ways CI can help your business thrive:
Why is competitive intelligence important to your business?
Any business, regardless of size or industry, competes directly with other businesses. If your company is attempting to grow, expand, or even survive, gathering competitive intelligence will be beneficial. Competitive intelligence is an important part of strategic decision-making, which means it is an important part of your overall business. It affects every aspect of your business, from marketing and sales to product development and strategic partnerships.. Gathering information about your competitors and industry helps you to:
Identify your strengths and weaknesses - This is key for strategic planning, as it allows you to identify areas where your company excels and areas where you need to improve.
Optimize your product or service - CI helps you understand what your customers want and how to best meet their needs.
Plan your business strategy - This includes deciding on your growth strategy, choosing your target audience, and determining your ideal price point.
Make informed decisions - When you understand your industry and competitors, you have the insight you need to make strategic decisions that help your company thrive.
Create a competitive advantage - With competitive intelligence, you can determine your strengths and weaknesses, which are the key components to creating a competitive advantage.
How CI benefits a company
You can better position yourself to win over your customer base and achieve success by staying up to date with your competitors. Competitive intelligence provides insight into your competitors' strategies, strengths, and weaknesses, allowing you to make more informed business decisions. Here are just some of the ways CI can help your business thrive:
It helps you identify your strengths and weaknesses. This allows you to make strategic decisions based on what you know about your business.
It helps you make strategic decisions. - By knowing your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, you can make decisions that give your company an advantage over the competition.
It helps you make informed decisions. - You can use CI to understand the potential outcomes of your business decisions and make the choices that are best for your company.
Tools to help you gather competitive intelligence
There are a few tools you can use to gather information about your competitors if you want to use competitive intelligence to your advantage:
Monitor your competitors’ social media - Social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram are great ways to gather information about your competitors, especially their customers.
Monitor your competitors’ websites - Be sure to look at your competitor's websites to see what they’re sharing, who they’re targeting, and how they’re positioning themselves in the market.
Read industry publications - These publications cover the happenings in your industry, allowing you to easily gather information about your competitors.
Attend industry events - You can find out a lot about your competitors by attending industry events and networking with other attendees.
Subscribe to broader governance information - By remaining up to date on changes and the impact of legal, regulatory, compliance and other governance requirements an organisation can prepare proactively instead of spending re-actively at a premium.
Compliance as a competitive advantage
Such is the value of appropriate intelligence that an organisation may be able to turn compliance effort and track record into a competitive advantage with an adequate understanding of the industry and jurisdiction-specific compliance landscape and complexity. Competitive intelligence on compliance programmes, success marketing, reputation management initiatives, and other legal and management efforts will enable a company to assess and outperform competitors in this area. Intelligence on non-compliance issues, social licence to operate challenges, stakeholder satisfaction, public information on compliance penalties, and so on can help an organisation position its brand as a superior value proposition while also improving compliance efficiency and effectiveness to advance its competitive advantage.
[1] Source: https://ai.reportlinker.com/en/resources/blog/best-practices/why-embedding-competitive-intelligence-throughout-your-entire-organization-is-a-key-success-factor [2] Source: https://ai.reportlinker.com/en/resources/blog/best-practices/why-embedding-competitive-intelligence-throughout-your-entire-organization-is-a-key-success-factor