How to Use Competitive Intelligence to Uncover your Competitors’ Strategies

How to use Competitive Intelligence to uncover your competitors’ strategies

To stay ahead of your competitors, you must learn faster than them. This is where Competitive Intelligence comes in. Getting on the front foot and knowing what they are doing before they do. By understanding their patterns and behaviours, you can create a competitive advantage. This article suggests how to use Competitive Intelligence to uncover your competitors’ strategies.

Uncover your competitors’ strategies

Do you know your understanding of your competitors is highly likely to be entirely wrong? And if you don’t have any Competitive Intelligence in place then you will be entirely wrong. Do you know how powerful it is to understand what your competitors are actually doing instead of thinking you know? And more importantly what they are going to do. Success and failure depend on how much you know your competitive environment. And yes, it’s not just about competitors.

What is Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive Intelligence is the finding, sorting and critical analysis of information. To make sense of what’s happening and why. Predict what’s going to happen and give the options to help you control the outcome. Competitive Intelligence offers more certainty, competitive advantage, insight, growth & security.

To stay ahead of competitors, you must learn faster than them. To know the answer before it’s too late to do something about it. And to get on the front foot and know what they are doing perhaps even before they do. So how can you learn faster? Well, given the theme of our last 450 articles, the answer is competitor analysis. Used with a robust Competitive Intelligence process.

Yes, Competitive Intelligence focuses on competitors. But also customers, suppliers, the group of competitors as one, and other stakeholders. Also products and markets and economic, legal and technological factors. Its primary purpose is directed at the external environment. So that you are more confident that the right actions can be taken promptly to stay competitive.

1. Expect competitor moves

Competitors can change their strategies instantly without much thought. Or at least that is how it appears if their rivals are not looking. Competitor Intelligence helps you figure out what they will do and when.

“We could anticipate competitor’s moves one or even two steps in advance”.

John Chambers, former Chairman of Cisco

And he is right.

2. Stay ahead of your competitors with Competitive Intelligence

Competitive Intelligence is increasingly relevant to stay ahead of your competition. Competitors are working hard to find out as much information about you and your marketplace. If you find this to be untrue, then you’re looking at the wrong competitors. It doesn’t matter how great your product is or how well you are doing. You need to be on it every day, even if you are the market leader. You need to go beyond reacting to situations. If not, you risk getting killed if you have to respond to competitive moves.

3. Find new opportunities with Competitive Analysis

Your competitors could be the best salespeople you have. But only if you pay attention to what they are doing and whom they are talking to, new things they are working on and the strategies they are pursuing.

It’s important to pay attention to these questions about your competitors:

• What they are doing?
• Whom they are talking to?
• What new things they are working on?
• What are the strategies they are pursuing?
• Why are they pursuing those strategies?

And yes we can do this and so much more for you.

But also, if they are not performing well in the eyes of customers, you need to know why and be on hand to assist them. The customers, not your competitor. But, they can change the marketplace. With new ways of using their current and next technologies can smash your market to bits.

4. Stand out with competitor analysis and Competitive Intelligence

You need to be seen as different and stand out to the customers you are trying to attract. You will already have the message you wish to shout from the rooftops. But is it working? Is your competitors’ brand identity working for them? If so, why? Is there anything you can take from them and develop into something better?

You need to know where you fit into your overall market. And investigating competitors is essential for developing your brand positioning.

5. Know your market dynamics with Competitive Intelligence

Competitive Intelligence assists you in sparking new ideas and fresh thinking. With Competitive Intelligence, you evaluate how your competition sells and positions their offerings. Understand how they isolate and then exploit gaps in the market. Gaps that maximise their profit margins. Knowing market dynamics allows you to make better operational decisions.

6. Innovation and Competitive Intelligence

All companies with a desire to grow and survive into the next decade need to be innovative. Innovation gives you a sustained competitive advantage. So you get ahead of your competitors and attract their customers to you. Knowing what your competitors are up to should never ever about copying them. You have to get ahead of them and be better than them. The more you get ahead, the more growth and profit you will experience.

7. Making better decisions with Competitive Intelligence

The truth is that you need more certainty and insights, not data. Data is what happens in the past, and it is perilous. It can be helpful for many things, but it is never forward-looking. And it never takes into account that we have to deal with something called humans. And the unexpected things that happen. There’s no argument that data is important and revolutionising the world we live in. It’s not an us and them situation. Data is key aspect of Competitive Intelligence. An important part, but still only part.

Real-time Competitive Intelligence helps you empower your decisions making and achieve your goals. By looking for evidence of industry trends and not just buying the latest Gartner report. Find out your competitors’ marketing plans, new product launches and innovations. And looking for changes to the market you currently and will work in.

8. Be quicker

Pandemics, fuel crisis, wars, digitisation, globalisation, and deregulation gives us future uncertainty. And with technology making these things move at light speeds means, we need to know what’s happening next. Otherwise, it will be impossible for you to compete against the fast-moving competitors. Competitive Intelligence is the solution to provide you with competitive insights. Backed by accurate, latest, and complete well thought out information.

It’s essential to understand your competitors to stay ahead of the game. Yet, this understanding can be wrong if you do not have the correct information. So, it’s important to know where to find this information and how to use it to gain the upper hand. So, if you are not involved, you need to start! If not, your competitors will have a competitive advantage over you, and they could crush you. But they will seriously damage you.

How to use Competitive Intelligence to uncover your competitors’ strategies

In conclusion, it is evident that you must learn faster than them to stay ahead of your competition. How to use Competitive Intelligence to uncover your competitors’ strategies was this article’s title. Competitive Intelligence can help you do that by giving you the information you need. To know what they are doing before they do. Get on the front foot and become the market leader with CI today!

Art by Jessica Knowlden