How to Use Competitive Intelligence Research to your Advantage

With the enormous amount of data generated by businesses and the rapidly increasing volumes of information flowing between companies, data collection and analysis have become standard among most if not all industries. Furthermore, businesses need to know how to utilize this data to gain insightful information that would lead to a competitive edge, also referred to as competitive intelligence.

What Is Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive intelligence (CI) refers to the ability to gather, analyze, and use information collected on competitors, customers, and other market factors that contribute to a business's competitive advantage. Competitive intelligence is important because it helps businesses understand their competitive environment and the opportunities and challenges it presents as industries evolve. Businesses analyze this information to create powerful and structured business practices. CI is about being able to make better and more confident business decisions. There are three subclasses that make a strong competitive report:

• Business Competitive Intelligence - Internal data or information collected from the business. This information serves as the foundation of CI.
• Market Intelligence - External data or information from wider market research and can involve research into new markets. Market Intelligence also includes overall Trends & Innovations happening within the industry
• Competitive Intelligence - External & Internal data or information that specifically focuses on the competitors within an established market.

Why Is Competitive Intelligence Important?

Competitive intelligence is important for any organization, as it can give them a competitive advantage over their competitors by enabling their businesses to make informed decisions. Competitive intelligence is now an integral part of the business strategy as it helps them understand their competitive environment, its opportunities as well as its challenges. Competitive intelligence enables businesses to:

1. Predict their competitors' next moves and be ready to counter them through qualitative and quantitative information. This includes competitive UX/UI analysis of capabilities, design, etc.
2. Monitor emerging technologies, customer expectations, market trends, and changes in their industry to better position themselves.
3. Identify future threats or disruptors that might arise in their industry.
4. Benchmark themselves to identify gaps or flaws in the business model and understand where they can improve.
5. Find opportunities for business expansion and growth.
6. Make business decisions strategically with more confidence, armed with actionable data insights and research.

How Do You Do Competitive Intelligence Research?

The most challenging part of conducting a competitive intelligence report is where to find the sources of information. The more in-depth your data is, the better the competitive intelligence report. Competitors aren't actively going to make public the type of information you want to know. However, there are a wide variety of sources that can provide the information you need. These include thoroughly researching your competitors' informational websites, buying your competitors' products and analyzing them, and for public companies, looking at shareholder reports and notices.

The more information and knowledge you have about the external market and your competitors, the better your decisions are likely to be informed. Your competitive intelligence strategy will grow, mature, and improve as you learn more about the process, and as you gain confidence in your ability to use the information wisely.

Overall, you'll improve your business performance by using competitive information strategically and intelligently.

The Competitive Intelligence research team at Key Lime Interactive can help you to conduct UX mobile competitive intelligence quickly and easily, generating detailed reports and competitive insights tailored to your specific business/industry.