Competitive Intelligence/Types

At the company level, CI can provide insight to Support corporate strategy. CI professionals should be Key members of a strategy team to make sure that all Senior executives are up-to-date on the competitors’ latest strategic moves and communicated plans. Business or financial aspects such as where the competitors invest and what the competitors’ margins are should be addressed by CI

At the product level, CI can provide insight to support product development. In product managers’ efforts to assess their own products’ competitive weaknesses or strengths, knowing what key rivals are offering within specific product categories is of high importance. At the marketing level, CI can provide insight to support marketing strategy. CI is often located in the marketing department and thus the CI team will play an important part in providing relevant insight to all four Ps (price, product, place, and promotion) in the marketing mix as part of deciding on an overall marketing strategy.

At the partnerships level, provide tactical intelligence on how to outperform Key competitors. To support the company’s client facing team with current intelligence will usually improve the win rate significantly.

Intelligence can also be broken into three levels:

Strategic

Operational

Tactical

Most organizations focus on the tactical piece - looking at product level intelligence on the competition.