Competitive Intelligence

Situation: You are in the process of establishing a CI department at your company. Aside from individual projects in response to specific requests from my internal clients, what other CI activities you should be preparing for?

As head of the CI department, you should prepare to engage in a wide range of information gathering and analysis activities.

To begin with, the head of the CI department should establish a network of internal sources of information. For example, salespeople often come across information on competitor activities, and much of this information is never shared with other departments. It will be your responsibility to establish a relationship with the salespeople and their managers so that any competitive information gathered by them is sent to you or your department for analysis and follow-up. The same applies to customer service representatives, who sometimes get competitor information from the clients they contact.

As head of the CI department, it is your responsibility to develop a profound understanding of the competition and the competitive market. What market segments are they targeting? How are they bundling their products and services? Competitor brochures and ads can provide some clues as to what your competitors are doing and how their actions will impact your company and the industry. Will they likely be successful? Market research conducted by your company or purchased from a third party can provide information on market trends. Coupling market research and information gathered from competitor brochure and ads can provide insight on the market segments the competitors are targeting and how it would likely impact market share and profitability.

If your industry is regulated by government legislation, it is important to keep abreast on any proposed legislation.

The personalities of the CEOs of competing companies can have a major impact on the strategies they are likely to employ. Does the CEO of a major competitor have a background in accounting or sales? Has the CEO worked in another industry or company or has he/she been promoted from within? Does the CEO have an aggressive or passive personality? What strategies has the CEO used in the past that is likely to be used again?

Another source of information are job ads. Is a competitor hiring more salespeople. If so, what is the reason for this hiring? Is the competitor hiring more R & D specialists? If so, is the competitor developing a new technology that can give them an edge in the industry?

To conclude, if you are planning to establish a CI department, you should map out all of the internal and external sources of competitive information and establish a network of contacts to facilitate information gathering and analysis.