Competitive intelligence (CI) has been a prominent part of my past jobs. It seemed like every interview or first day on the job, the most common comment was " Great, we know nothing about or competitors can you go find out xyz?"
The problem with CI in most organizations is that it can be difficult to figure out how to best use the information. The difficult part is that people have their own need for particular information but when all the data is put all together it usually equals the length of Trinity and is hard to impossible to act on.
What I have found most useful is to approach CI in the following ways:
1. Agree on a competitive set to benchmark as well as a format in which the reports will be delivered. Most firms have their own way of communicating information so it does no good to introduce a new format that will require a learning curve as this will impede the adoption of the intelligence.
2. Do relatively in depth profiles on agreed upon areas such as pricing, partners, customers, go to market model, financial benchmarks, etc. These documents should be updated on a quarterly basis and serve as a primer for people interested in certain firms as well as provides the CI analyst with a good understanding of the landscape that can be used for other ad hoc requests and briefs.
3. Lastly, I have found that short 1 page briefs on an announcement from a competitor such as an acquisition, partnership or new product release will provide people with just enough information to keep them up to date in a highly digestible format. These briefs are also useful "trial balloons" to determine what is important to look at more deeply based upon the response of your readers.
CI is an important tool but like anything else it has to be delivered in a way that is useful, easily digestible, and actionable.
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