The process of gathering and distributing competitive intelligence is unique to each company. But there are some common trends. Current practices involve monitoring your competitor’s financial performance, tracking changes in market share, analysis of your competitor’s strategy, win-loss analysis etc.
It involves both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis - with the former being relatively complex. The limitation of this traditional way of analysis is that it is a only competitor-centric view. It is an analysis of how one competitor views another.Although this information is important, a customer-centric view of your competitors is far more important. Taking the customer's perspective in analyzing your competitors provides unique winning insights.
It is quite common to think of competitive intelligence as something managed entirely by a team of competitive intelligence experts. In reality, competitive intelligence is collected and analyzed by several teams in an organization.
Product Development teams collect and analyze product specifications of their competitors. Sales teams study the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors. Strategy teams collect and analyze strategic elements like Go-To-Market Strategy etc. Top leadership teams, with help from finance teams analyze and compare the financial performance of competitors.
Though several teams across the organization collect competitive data, this information is not necessarily shared with the broader organization for lack of ‘right context’. But this information when collected and put in the right context can be extremely helpful for the organisation. A holistic view of your competitors can provide your organization with unmatched competitive advantage.
To achieve this competitive edge, competitive intelligence can no longer be perceived as the responsibility of a few experts, but needs to be recognized as a democratized process. Employees with diverse backgrounds, experience working for competitors, deep understanding of competitor products, strategies etc can provide unique insights. This approach can provide a clearer view of your competitors and help you win more customers.