Competitive intelligence can be defined as the process of observing, collecting, and analyzing information available about companies in the same marketing area or otherwise and using the information to make informed decisions that one’s company outshine competitors. Many of the companies are invested in this kind of research since they have proven to be very effective in increasing the company’s output. All the companies will have the information about competitors, but analyzing the data will make the company stay ahead of the competition.
Importance of competitive intelligence
Anticipating competitor strategy will lead to staying ahead of the competition. Competitive-intelligence helps in this situation because it will be easy to compute their next move by having competitors’ past information. This will help you get the time to counter their strategy and stay ahead of the competition.
Competitive intelligence will help in coming up with new ideas and encourage innovation. Observing competitors’ progress and ideas will drive one company to work harder in innovation and develop a new idea on how to improve marketing. It will ensure that workers stay focused, which increases company output.
Providing unique services and the product is key to the growth of a business. Having information about other competitors and analyzing it will make sure one can achieve this. Knowing what one’s competitors are providing and analyzing it will make you able to improve on them and be better, which will attract customers.
One of the main reasons for the use of competitive-intelligence is to learn the flow of the market. This is learned by analyzing data and determining the trend that they take in a certain scope and the reason for the trend. This will make sure one can produce products and services that are favorable to the treads. With this kind of information, one can outsmart the competition and stay leading in the sector.
Competitive-intelligence enhances better decision-making. The success of a business is highly determined by the decision makings of the main stakeholders in it. To make better decisions, one has to be well acquainted with enough information about the particular sector. Hence the information gathering and analysis will be very handy to make good decisions for the company’s growth.
Being aware of future threats is essential for the existence of a company. Competitive-intelligence analysis trends of previous experiences and can predict what will happen in the future. This will allow the company to rectify a bad tread that may lead to the failure of the business before it even happens.
Competitive-intelligence can work as a benchmarking strategy for companies. Companies can observe what their other competitors are doing right and be able to learn a thing or two. This will make sure the companies better their products than their other competition.
Main sources of information for competitive intelligence
Customers – customers being the main reason businesses exist their feedbacks on products and their takes on how products should be improved is very important to competitive-intelligence. This information can be collected by conducting surveys, among other means.
Trade shows and conferences – this provides the flow of the markets and what is trending in different sectors, and companies broadcast their progress.
Suppliers can ask their suppliers what they know concerning the sector, which may help plan the growth of the business.
Industrial reports and financial reports are mostly generated annually by companies containing their progress in the year.
Social media – here, one can follow what is trending and align their products to that by analyzing the data.
Artificial intelligence is the main driving factor for competitive intelligence. Many companies drive competitive intelligence in modern markets. One of the main ones is NetBase Quid, which helps companies learn the trends and curves in the market and advises on the correct direction and way to improve the business. It achieves this by gathering information and analyzing it using artificial intelligence, which can process massive data in seconds.
