How can you ensure accurate and up-to-date competitive intelligence?

The competitive landscape is rapidly changing so I like to have a CI file where I keep insights from articles, market data, customers, competitor website, job listings and competitors partners and agencies. Having a full view of where they are growing, where they are hiring and what are their gaps/weaknesses can help as you navigate to achieving your mission and goals. I often say our competitors can be our inspiration to think outside of the box and how to be a better partner.

Whilst CI strategies and activities are important, our experience indicates that organisations tend to over index on competitor activity as they fail to define clear stategic goals or operational imperatives for their business and product. Reactions to competitor activity are therefore just that - reactions. This has led to the 'race to zero margin' for example when it comes to pricing strategies. In other instances, they fail to identify the 'value they can add to the chain' for their stakeholders. CI needs to be postitioned within the organisation's information ecosystem as an enabler and not a trigger.

👉🏽Have an yearly, quarterly, and monthly plans to update CI. 👉🏽List out key competitors, this list might change over time. Talk to sales/CSM teams to find out if you're up against any new competitors, keep the list updated too. 👉🏽Just how you know your product, you need to know the competitor products too. Keep an eye on their feature releases, announcements, and key events. 👉🏽Use this intelligence and translate it into collaterals sales teams can use it to their advantage. 👉🏽Create battle cards, feature comparisons, why we win, and handle objection handling. Keep them updated every month/quarter

In my experience many companies do not prioritize a formal competitive intelligence process. It should be updated regularly (e.g. quarterly) as it offers an opportunity to gather market data outside of your product team's echo chamber. The data gathering process can mature over time and can start as simple benchmarking but over time it should include elements of markets, customers, and competitors behaviors with the goal of driving internal roadmaps and funding decisions. There is also an opportunity to look at alternate technologies or ways of doing things that may replace existing products and services allowing your company to stay relevant for the long haul.

I obtains competitive intelligence through systematic market research, monitoring industry trends, and analyzing competitors' strategies. This involves gathering data on products, pricing, market share, and customer feedback to make informed business decisions. Utilizing both internal resources and external tools, I stay informed to adapt and stay competitive in the dynamic business landscape.

Com as marcas cada vez mais utilizando estratégias de comunicação social complexas e de longo prazo, acompanhar as suas ações nas redes sociais se torna uma ferramenta valiosa. Através desse método, é possível identificar mudanças na linha de comunicação, prever movimentos das marcas e do mercado, e estar atento às movimentações dos concorrentes. Ter esse radar ligado é essencial para se manter competitivo e responder rapidamente às oportunidades de mercado.

When I was working as a compete lead I had a routine that helped me keep track of my competitors: 1. Enable twitter (X) notifications on my main competitors. This way, I would get daily push notifications when something important was going on. 2. Do a weekly "news" search on Bing or Google, you have a specific tab for that. Or you can now use bing chat for a quicker live review. 3. Go to the Competitors main events. Keep track of the main events from your competitors as it is the perfect source to understand their roadmap.

Do a weekly follow up and take information from market as much as you can and take feedback from your customers side, if in need, dissect products to get more information

I agree that subscribing to reports and tools to track reach and sentiment is essential for understanding your competitors online presence. Your media agency may also be able to help you understand how your competitors are spending their advertising budget online. Reviewing job postings on LinkedIn can be an additional source of information to understand where investments in resources are made in the market place. Finally, I would play around with generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to get a free analysis of the competitors online presence.

While tracking the online activity is crucial, I have found, in medical devices marketing, that some competitive activity is designed to go under the radar. So besides a thorough sweep of all tools mentioned, there are 2 steps I have found useful: 1- Develop and Maintain strong relationships with Key Opinion Leaders, regularly touching base and asking questions about overal activities 2- Have mechanisms for collecting intel from the field sales/clinical team. That can be proactive reaching out or creating processes for the field to report on findings.

Competitive intel is only good for so long. In both win and loss, it’s critical to ask for feedback from customers and partners. A company can never assume that what was true three or six months ago, is still accurate. If you don’t ask for feedback on what makes the difference for your brand or another, you can’t expect consistent head-to-head success!

Gathering meaningful information from a win loss perspective is a key to understanding how well you are meeting needs. You must strive to gather quantitative and qualitative data from many sources, including the sales team, as well as customers and identified prospects. From experience, relying solely on only one source can provide misleading information. Once you have enough data you can assess performance against a number of variables (including but not limited to industry segments, personas, competitor involvement, lead sources, prior buying cycles). It Is extremely important to make a commitment to gather data over an extended period of time so that you can trend the information.

I like quarterly 360 analysis. I know it's tedious, BUT one can always rotate categories to be more cost effective. Obtaining views from customers (new and tenured), prospects (targeted and those who entered the funnel but didn't purchase), and don't forget about employees. Often those of us in management can't see the forest from the trees. Employees often have perspectives that can be far more valuable than the agencies we pay. I also recommend, be aware of what your competition is doing, but forge your own path. Create a solid plan, work the plan & don't allow miniscule competitive pressures throw you off course. The identity you create will be unique and sustainable.

A very helpful program to implement at your company in case you don't have it. Here is how I did it: - Create a 360 program to understand why you win or lose vs the competition. 360 = Interview your sales team, customer and partner involved (if that applies). - Create a fearless culture, the win/loss program is not intended to inspect deals, rather to learn from them. You can even call it Win/Learn program. Make sure you communicate it in the right way. - Do a quarterly "macro" analysis of all the deals you interviewed and share back the information to your sellers, so they are better prepared for the future.

Se você constrói um ótimo relacionamento com seus clientes, eles podem não comprar seu produto num primeiro momento, mas podem dar um rico feedback sobre seus pontos fortes/fracos, e os pontos fortes/fracos da concorrência, para ajustar a estratégia. Ter uma relação de confiança, com interesse genuíno de ajudar ao seu cliente, será sempre um rasgo positivo da empresa e do executivo, e nunca é tempo perdido. Ou você ganha um cliente, ou aprende uma lição, sem a parceria do cliente, pode não ter nem uma nem outra

Benchmarking product performance goes beyond metrics. It's about innovating and resonating with users, turning products into experiences that exceed mere functionality. It's a creative journey focused on emotional connection and continuous improvement.

As with any other benchmarking and performance tracking, it’s important to think about both leading and lagging indicators of success for a successful CI program. For instance, leading indicators could be CI asset utilization or CI program confidence through stakeholder surveys. Lagging indicators on the other hand, could focus more on win rates relative to competitors you are focused on, or even a shorter deal cycle when sellers are well-equipped to talk through competitive scenarios.

Put the human back into the equation here and track the customer journey. So many reviews complain about the jump from super attentive sales schmooze to a disconnected onboarding experience. Particularly in software described as 'plug and play'. Plug and play for the in-house development team differs greatly from the new customer. Have a customer panel inviting feedback quarterly. As much as I love data, it can hide the fact that a customer is running your software and ready to implement a new or in-house solution when renewal is due. Keep your customer close.

If you can, benchmark by using your product -- and your competitors' products -- as much as you can. Interviews and 3rd party metrics are useful, sure, but nothing compares to actually using the product. While they cannot (and should not!) try to be a direct proxy for their customers, product managers should constantly be using their products. That should extend to using their competitors' products. Download their apps, use their APIs, read their documentation, sign up for free trials, and create a dedicated budget as a part of your competitive intelligence plans.

If you’re a capital equipment or enterprise software provider, your industry trade group(s) can really help with benchmarks. Also, establish a “peer group” of non-competitors and count on them as collaborators for benchmarking.

Capturing an "acid" internal AND external perspective of all stakeholders involved in a competitive landscape review is essential to accurately compare my enterprise position vs. competition. The biggest error i often observe is to consider ourselves as the benchmark and compare ourselves to known competition (MasterCard to Visa) and not to look into non-linear ones (Stripe, Adyen).

Collaboration should involve working with key stakeholders to determine how to use insights from CI to capitalize on opportunities (based on competitor weaknesses), as well as neutralize competitive threats. Enter the "CI Action Plan" - a detailed operational plan to drive strategic change across functions/roles with planned responses, response activities, timelines and response owners. For example, frequent post-sales support issues with a competitor can highlight an opportunity to reinforce your service-oriented strengths, backed by customer proof points (e.g., testimonials, case studies, reviews). The action plan should be cross-functional and impact all corners of the business, including product, sales, marketing, and customer success.

I agree emphatically. The "internal selling" aspect of this point cannot be said strongly enough. Sometimes, you may be challenging a product functionality, feature, perceived benefit or market understanding (or: misunderstanding?) - so be sure to listen well, ask lots of questions, and be curious with your internal stakeholders!

One can utilise statistics, trawl papers and look at figures and of course this will bring insights. However these are often retrospective. Getting out and talking to your customers, your competitors, your employees all builds a picture of what is hot and what is not… remember two ears and one mouth for a reason!

Equipas multidiscilpinares vão ajudar a criar as melhores ofertas. Encontre o Pain point do seu target e trabalhe em conjunto com outros profissionais para encontrar a melhorar solução. Cada área de trabalho é uma área especifica e cada profissional deve ser bom na sua área. Podemos ajudar mas cada um será responsável por fazer seu trabalho.

Três pontos importantes. - Analise o que for necessário - Researchs; Swots; PESTL; 3C's vão ajudar - Desenvolva a sua estratégia com base na análise - Defina para quem, como; quando e onde vai jogar. Isto obriga a decidir com quem ou para quem não vamos jogar. Decidir o que não fazer é também muito importante. - OGSM podem ajudar - Planifique as tácticas que o vão conduzir ao resultado - Quais são as ações que vais realizar - Plano de Marketing ajuda muitos 4P's E não esqueça de medir os resultados - vendas; quotas de mercado; leads; ROI. E animo para o seu futuro

In my experience, one of the best way to get competetive info is having tea/coffee talks with users/customers where there is a real experience exchange😊

Just a simple observation, but for anything like this, make sure there is clarity around who is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the information. Also, make sure that they are given the time necessary to do the job adequately. Make sure processes are documented, and there is a playbook or similar that can be used to upskill a new person if the existing person leaves. Too often in business things are left to chance. By doing the above you make sure as best you can to load the dice in your favor when it comes to having the data give you the insights you are looking for from it.

Ask your Sales Team what they��ve heard from prospects and customers. They are your eyes and ears. Most of the prospects and customers I called on had strong opinions and were glad to tell me what they thought about competitors (the company) and their products. -both positive and negative info. In Marketing, I regularly asked our sale team for product, company and industry intelligence. I found this information to be helpful and credible with management.

Helpful advice in 1-5, just want to make a general call out for: 1 - process, that defines information needed, where and how to collect it, how to store, and how to access 2 - ownership, provision of competitive intelligence needs to be in certain individuals job definitions as a deliverable - CI is not an "occasional" task if it is to offer true insights 3 - consistency, seek to continuously improve your process but wild swings in what you want will only cause unnecessary whiplash in your organization. CI needs continuity and evolution not panic-induced knee-jerks and a spinning compass 4 Transparency, let the whole organization know what CI is about, how it's used and their role in gathering knowledge In short, embed CI in daily work