Do you have a good grasp on who your competitors are? Even if you think you do, your team should consistently be conducting competitive intelligence efforts.

Competitive intelligence (CI) is the practice of gathering and analyzing data on your business rivals in order to help you form long-term strategy for your own company. To run an operation that will thrive for the long term, it’s important to have a handle on where things are in-house as well as where your competition stands. According to a recent survey by CI software platform Crayon, almost 60% of respondents said their market has gotten much more competitive over the past three years.

Fortunately, there are a number of publicly available sources that can help you glean important information. Competitive intelligence isn’t spying in the negative sense of the term; as long as research is done within legal and ethical limits, it’s a widely accepted – and essential – practice in the business world.

Here’s how to gather competitive intelligence smartly and efficiently.

1

Identify your primary competitors.

Keep this list limited to perhaps two or three companies. You don’t want to try to glean information on every distributor in the industry. Do preliminary research to find out who’s a direct competitor of yours based on geographical location and/or expertise. Then put the bulk of your efforts into regularly keeping tabs on them.

2

Set objectives.

Determine exactly what you want to find out about the other companies. Perhaps it’s their marketing message and current campaigns to customers, for example. That will give you and your team direction when you’re looking at sources of information. And be patient – intelligence-gathering requires focused investigation, and it can take time to collect what you need to know and track patterns.

3

Know where to look.

Publicly available sources are fair game. (It’s not legal or ethical to obtain proprietary information or go into competitors’ offices on false pretenses.) Look at their website, social media, press releases, job postings, marketing emails, white papers, product releases, pricing changes, customer reviews and even your own team – they may have insights they’ve gathered on their own.

60%
the percentage of CI professionals who say their market has gotten much more competitive since 2020. (Crayon)

4

Go to relevant sources.

For each round of intelligence-gathering, which should take place consistently, understand what you want to find out and then go to the pertinent sources. If you want to know about new products competitors are offering, for example, check their website, social media and marketing emails. Only look at the most applicable sources so you can be efficient in gaining information.

5

Analyze the data.

Once you find out about a recent development at your competitor, create your own actionable strategy based on that. This process can take anywhere from a few days to a few months. As you study long-term patterns, you can determine competitors’ strengths and weaknesses and capitalize. Don’t just copy what they’re doing; create a long-term strategy for yourself based on marketplace trends.

6

Hire an expert.

Conducting competitive intelligence effectively takes time and practice. You may want to consider outsourcing the work to an expert firm – they’ll take care of the research based on your goals, analyze what they find and offer strategy suggestions for your company. You can also take a look at competitive-intelligence software platforms, like Talkwalker, Crayon and G2.