What is Competitive Intelligence?

Competitive intelligence is the legal and ethical collection and analysis of your competitor's information to make more informed decisions about your product and company. Having data on your competition should be a no-brainer, but there are so many questions that come up on what to collect and how to handle competitive intelligence.

What are the goals of competitive intelligence?

The primary goal of competitive intelligence is to make better decisions about your product and brand. It can reveal if there are any risks or opportunities in the market you are in or seeking to enter. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of competing products will help you position your own product against the opposition.

How to collect competitive intelligence

You've probably already done some aspect of competitive intelligence and analysis in the past, but you may not have a formalized process or defined goals for your efforts.

Here are a few ways to gather competitive intelligence:

Review your competitions' websites and monitor for changes
Ask around the office for what they know about the competition
Study your competitors' reviews, forums, and conversations from customers
Monitor the news for information on your competitors

Competitive Intelligence Tools

Good ol' fashioned spreadsheets and Google Search
Semrush
Crayon
Crunchbase

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Featured Blog Posts

Competitive Product Development: How to Decode the Competition

Product Development

As a product owner, the prospect of bringing a new product to market is exciting. You see a gap in the market for a device, software, or mobile app that will make your customers' lives easier or more enjoyable.

Using Beta for Competitive Research

Test Planning

Beta testing can be a great tool for understanding how your customers interact with your product, but the usefulness of beta testing doesn’t have to stop there. You can also use your beta community, tools, and expertise to conduct competitive research on other products in your market. This is an easy way to get an in-depth view of how customers use your competitor’s product and how it stacks up against your own.