Competitive Intelligence Market Research

Every experienced business owner knows that no organization can function in a vacuum. It does not matter how good your products or services are, nor how loyal your customer base may be, you always have to stay abreast of the current market landscape. If you don’t, sooner or later you will not be able to adapt to the changing environment, and you will lose out to your competitors. This is where competitive intelligence becomes useful.

So, what is competitive intelligence?

Competitive Intelligence (CI) is the process of obtaining, analysing, and using the information about a company’s competitors, customers, and other market elements to improve the company’s competitive advantage. Competitive intelligence is important because it helps businesses understand their competitive environment, including the opportunities and challenges it presents. Data is analysed by businesses to produce more efficient and profitable operations.

Then the next question arises, what is the purpose of competitive intelligence?

Competitive intelligence provides answers to multiple questions like:

1. Who are my competitors?
2. Which client base do my competitors serve? What do they have in common with my business?
3. Is there any key market trend or competitive insight I can use to grow my business?
4. How much revenue and sales do my competitors generate annually?
5. How can my offerings help to address the challenges that they face?

Competitive Intelligence can serve as the foundation of any business plan or strategy, allowing the organization to position itself in the market and to develop a strategy for overcoming the competition. Another use of competitive intelligence is to determine the best approach to follow to better position themselves against their immediate competitors. Conducting competitive intelligence market research can be quite beneficial in revealing potential venues that one may not have considered before.

Information and analysis from a variety of sources, such as the news media, customer and competitor interviews, industry experts, trade exhibitions and conferences, government data, and public filings, are all included in typical competitive intelligence research. Competitive intelligence also entails the investigation of a company’s stakeholders, key suppliers, and distributors as well as its customers and competitors. Competitive intelligence analysis also helps any organization in understanding the market pulse rate before launching any new product or entering any new market.

The various methods of conducting competitive intelligence market research by different market research agencies are:

1. Outlining a competitive strategy which also includes the future scenario planning
2. Conducting a detailed competitor analysis including the product and price comparison
3. Continuous competitor tracking

There are two main groups of competitive intelligence activities: tactical and strategic. The goal of tactical intelligence is to provide insights into short-term issues such as capturing market share or increasing sales. On the other hand, strategic intelligence helps the organization in identifying the opportunities and risks that the organization is facing over time.

The different competitive intelligence market research agencies provide holistic perspectives in offering competitive analysis and market intelligence services. Some of the popular Market Research Facilities Chicago that provide competitive intelligence market research are Strategy Here, Rabin Research, Beall Research, Shapiro+Raj, The Martec Group, MFORCE Research etc.

Other global market research agencies that provide competitive intelligence market research are SIS International Research (USA), Geo Strategy Partners (USA), Ascendant Consulting Firm (USA), Proactive Worldwide, Inc. (USA), Customer Foresight Group, Limited (Canada), Demanda Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento de Marketing (Brazil), Cogencia Consulting Inc. (Philippines), Voice of Customer Research (VOC Research) (USA), Mindspot Research (USA), Cascade Insights (USA), Rose Research LLC (USA) and many more.

In the digital age, insights and improved decision-making processes are easier to gain than ever. Competitive intelligence market research goes beyond simply ‘knowing your enemy’ to a deep market research analysis including the finer details of competitors’ business plans. Furthermore, it also highlights how distributors and other stakeholders could be affected, as well as how new technologies can quickly overthrow every presumption about the market.