most companies do not have a formal competitive intelligence (CI) plan in place

1. THE NEED FOR COMPETITIVE
INTELLIGENCE
For additional information about Competitive Intelligence
please visit www.Intelligence2act.com

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Even though all businesses would like to know what their competitors
are thinking and what they are implementing, most companies do not
have a formal competitive intelligence (CI) plan in place.
If they do it is usually something like subscribing to their newsletter or
following their tweets, which is good if it makes up a component of the
overall CI plan, but is severely inadequate on its own. Having an
intimate understanding of what your competitors are planning or
thinking will allow you to make better decisions for your own company
to prosper.
While this information shouldn’t impair your companies own unique
proposition, it can provide valuable insight that can aid the timely
release of new products, or help your organization to evaluate new
business strategies at arm’s length.
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For nothing else but to provide industry or niche benchmarks,
competitive intelligence can dramatically affect the direction of
business progress.
By allowing you company to identify its strengths and weaknesses, as
compared to its competitors, it is better able to increase the
competitive advantage around the strengths and shore up or remedy
the weaknesses.
Collecting the data is only a part of a good CI plan, as it has to be
analyzed and formed into an actionable format. Having all of the CI data
is great but not having understandable actionable results from it is as
good as not having it at all.
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When you are able to gain insights into your strengths and weaknesses
as compared to your competitors, through a well-rounded CI process,
your organization will be more inclined to take action to resolve the
negative differences.
By merely taking a look at the areas that could use the most
improvement your company will likely put forth an effort to reach the
same level or even surpass the competitive baseline.
Depending on the energy and resources, your company may even use
this CI data in order to become the niche or sector leaders.
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Once your company can get in the habit of collecting, analyzing, and
using the competitive intelligence data that is available, it will likely be
in a better position to take a stronger position in the market.
The multiple benefits from implementing a solid CI process are many,
and the faster that you are able to implement, even a rudimentary
process, the faster that you will gain an advantage over your
competition.
Innovate and iterate on the CI process and you will have all of the data
that you need to make the best decisions on future plans, as well as
improving your organization’s weaknesses.
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6. For additional information about Competitive Intelligence
please visit www.Intelligence2act.com