Competitive intelligence: what is it and how can it help your business?
Within an organisation, competitive intelligence is the process by which competitor companies are analysed in order to anticipate their actions and make advantageous decisions and achieve better results. It is one of the most widely used tools in today's business environment.
Data can be obtained in many ways: interviews, analysis of past actions, monitoring of social networks, etc., in order to transmit this information to those in charge.
It should be noted that there is a legal notice to avoid certain actions. Throughout this article, we will show you the importance of competitive intelligence, its restrictions and how you can implement it.
What is competitive intelligence?
Definition
Intelligence in a company is the exhaustive analysis of a situation in order to make a decision. Competitive intelligence would be the part of intelligence dedicated to studying the context of competitors.
According to the Spanish Association for Quality, it consists of obtaining data, analysing it, interpreting it and disseminating this information to decision-makers.
Competitor analysis allows us to obtain the strengths and weaknesses of rival companies.
What about technology watch?
It is normal to find that competitive intelligence goes hand in hand with the term technology watch. It is an action that is part of the analysis. In this case, we are dealing with a process that, on a permanent basis, captures, organises and selects all the information regarding the science and technology of both our company and the competition.
Its use allows you to make decisions with much less risk and to know the technological situation of your company. In other words, it is the key to making decisions regarding technological or IT growth issues.
Legal regulation of competitive intelligence
Not everything goes in competitive intelligence. Some actions of taking data from the outside may amount to espionage. This includes all information obtained under the following actions:
- Computer attacks to obtain high-value information.
- Theft of company designs, prototypes or ideas, without their knowledge.
- Information leaked by company staff in breach of their confidentiality agreement.
- Bribery of any individual with knowledge of the company.
- Infiltration of someone into the company to obtain information.
Thus, we can conclude that the data analysed in competitive intelligence should be that which has been published with the competitor's knowledge.
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Competitive intelligence in business
Although not all companies apply competitive intelligence, it has a number of benefits. Not only is information needed for making an important decision, but also for every aspect of your work.
Why is competitive intelligence so important?
Some of the reasons why it is important to apply a strategy is because competitive intelligence allows you to:
- Anticipate any unforeseen events in the market, movement of the competition, etc. With competitive intelligence, you study future trends and know how to act on them.
- Get market opportunities that you would not otherwise be aware of. You can see where there is a niche market, or where a strong strategy has already been developed.
- You have less risk during the decision-making process. You also have higher productivity at work, as everything is more aligned.
- Collect collective learning for the company, by analysing what each company does, how it does it, etc.
How can competitive intelligence be applied in the company?
Although competitive intelligence does not have a clear technique or instruction manual, it is necessary to have a strategic planning when carrying it out:
1. Information search
In this phase, it is necessary to track as much competitive information as possible, choosing which data seem necessary to analyse. In this case, look at the market in general and find out where and who the direct and indirect competitors are .
Searching for information on a website is not particularly easy. For this you can use tools like OnCrawl, which allows you, for example, to crawl a website, no matter how big it is, to find out what its SEO performance is.
© Oncrawl
This software has the ability to crawl a multitude of websites, even those with thousands of pages, to provide you with the essential data you need in the process. You can also use it to monitor search information in real time. Another advantage is its ability to distinguish between robot and human searches, making its data much more reliable.
2. Analysis
Analysing the data obtained to see how it can be integrated into the operation of the company is a diverse task. Depending on the type of information you are going to analyse, you can use one technique or another.
There are a multitude of analysis tools such as the SWOT model, in which you enter some of the information obtained above. In this case, you fill in the boxes for Threats, companies that can take away your market, and Opportunities, places in the market where you can develop.
You can also analyse what your social media strategy is, such as website, social networks, blogging, etc. For this, the SEMrush tool allows you to analyse various online aspects of your competitors, such as SEO, PPC, or social media.
© RockContent
One of the specifications of this software is that it allows you to analyse the positioning of your competitors in the Google search engine. Thanks to that, you can know which keywords are the most positioned, the average length of the articles or the competitiveness of that search. All this can be applied in favour of your professional activity.
3. Application
All the results obtained in the research of the competition have to be transferred to the decision-makers. It must be borne in mind that strategic decision-making cannot be governed one hundred percent by what the competition is doing. Each company has to be aware of what its strengths are and what it can do with them.
Even so, it is not a bad thing to have a well thought-out strategy that takes into account what competitors are doing in order to implement it. The Spyfu tool allows you to do an SEO analysis of other companies to help you develop your own SEO strategy.
© Fiverr
The tool allows you to find out which Adwords another company has bought, how they have positioned themselves (and changed sites) over the years. It can also carry out keyword research to be able to offer alternatives and indicate which are the most appropriate.
Competitive intelligence: the grand strategy of the 21st century
Obtaining and analysing competitor data has been a widely used strategy throughout business development. Knowing what other companies were doing has always been helpful in deciding how to redirect a business. But it is true that, in the current century, it has become one of the key factors of business success .
Today, most companies have people, even entire departments, doing this activity. If your company has not yet developed a competitive intelligence strategy, are you really going to be left behind?
Article translated from Spanish