In the business world, risks and opportunities are everywhere. For example, an industry trend may be sweeping the market for a limited time and favor early adopters, while a competitor that went bust can be a good source for acquiring new customers.
These types of news are not readily available, and by the time you purchase expensive analyst reports, they’re already outdated. So how do you make sure you understand your competition and stay ahead of market trends in a way that’s proactive and doesn’t break the bank?
Competitive intelligence is the answer to ensuring your business doesn’t get caught off guard. Notably, it’s not all data collection. Rather, it’s also about enabling the entire team to win through an actionable and repeatable process.
In this guide, you’ll learn the following:
What competitive intelligence is
Why competitive intelligence is important
Where to gather competitive intelligence
How to build a competitive intelligence program
Competitive intelligence software
What is competitive intelligence?
Competitive intelligence (CI) is the process of gathering, analyzing, and sharing information about competitors, customers, and other market indicators to increase a company’s competitive edge.
It involves a coordinated competitive intelligence program and a centralized collection of data from various sources.
Why is competitive intelligence important?
To succeed in business, knowing your competitors’ moves is not enough. Companies also need to be aware of market trends and how those changes will impact stakeholders. For example, unforeseen events in your industry may be cutting your financial gains this quarter.
This is where competitive intelligence steps in as a process to make more informed business decisions, reducing the uncertainty of external events. CI can also help you to:
recommended name is what makes affiliate marketing such a powerful pillar of digital marketing.
Here we’ll walk you through our whatsapp number list step-by-step guide to using affiliate marketing to reach more of your audience.
Generate more revenue.
Spot growth opportunities early on.
Anticipate market shifts with confidence.
Develop counter-strategies for each of your competitors.
Benchmark against competitors to discover areas of improvement.
Measure brand perception in the eyes of your customers.
Streamline product launches.
All these points can be effectively translated into a competitive intelligence program. But first, let’s look at what you came here for: competitive intelligence sources.
Where to gather competitive intelligence
Like any system, the quality of the data you put into your CI program is a good predictor of its success. In the end, your goal is to create a complete profile of your competitor.
To do so, here are eight competitive intelligence sources that you can use today: