Why You Need Competitive Intelligence

Crayon's '2024 State of Competitive Intelligence' benchmarking report points to the need for CI for business. This survey finds that 65% of business sales are competitive by nature, and that's only when the client says it's a competitive business pitch. The figure is likely to be much higher, and with times being tough, businesses will have to be better prepared with their knowledge about how the market operates.

If you need background information for a sales pitch, please get in touch.

Top Companies That Invest in R&D

Finding R&D spend can be problematic as often this cost centre can be hidden on a balance sheet or be spread amongst a range of subsidiaries. This website (https://www.ideatovalue.com/inno/nickskillicorn/2019/08/top-1000-companies-that-spend-the-most-on-research-development-charts-and-analysis/) will allow you (with the provision of your email address) the ability to also locate R&D investment by country and industry.

A Picture Really is Worth a Thousand Words

Clients are often interested in how many retail outlets or warehouses that a competitor has and their location. Looking at a competitor’s physical site on Google Streetview via Google Maps gives you a lot of extra information rather than just a one-dimensional description of the size of a warehouse, for example. You can see how close it is to other transport hubs and motorway connections, how modern it is, what other businesses are nearby, and what sort of demographic is close to the location — super useful context to give to a client.

Find Competitor Intelligence

Sometimes I don’t know whom the main competitors are when researching an unfamiliar market. First stop to find out is to use Google.

Imagine that my client is Starbucks. I could then search on Google using ‘vs’ or ‘versus’ in keywords. See how a list of competitors appears. This search is also likely to elicit lots of information that has a competitive intelligence slant.

With competitive research it’s not just the direct competitors that you need to worry about, it’s the disruptors who enter your marketplace with new technology or services that solve your customer’s problems better. That’s when a comprehensive search of the market using free and paywall resources comes into play. The crucial thing here is to understand what market is in terms of the problem that your buyer wants to be solved, not just the product or service that you are selling.

New Product Development (NPD)

I’m always on the hunt for cool new apps, websites or tools that will help me work smarter. Have a look at Product Hunt. It’s a daily list of the best new products or new releases. The breath of what is being developed is just amazing and great to see what features developers are adding to their products. This could give you ideas about where to take your product or service, plus offers some great competitor research insights.

Research for Venture Capitalists

By the very nature of what they do, venture capitalists have a need for detailed research on companies and markets. My new favourite daily newsletter is by CB Insights (https://www.cbinsights.com/) which provides up-to-date analysis on where the money is going. We are living in an era of disruption with massive change occurring in sectors such as health, finance, retail and manufacturing to name a few. CB Insights have their finger firmly on the pulse, with on-point analysis, so that you can keep up. Some info is behind a paywall, but the daily newsletter is free and written in a very entertaining way. However, if there’s some research gaps that need filling, you can always get in touch with me for help first.

Market Research For Exporters

The New Zealand Story (https://www.nzstory.govt.nz/pages/about) was created with extensive input from over 200 leaders from the primary sector, manufacturing, Māori, export industry, education and wider government services to promote New Zealand. Lots of good on-the-ground research here. One report about exporting to Japan reminds Kiwi's to highlight how we excel by being creative and ingenious in primary markets rather than telling them how good we are at supplying agricultural products.

Market Analyst Reports

While I prefer the fee-based analyst databases for their search capability, Smarter Analyst (https://www.smarteranalyst.com/) is a great free substitute. The analyst commentaries focus on listed U.S. companies, so the value of this resource is limited somewhat. The plus is that you can see what is happening in this market and how it could translate to where you are. These analysts often have the contacts and intimate knowledge of a market, which means you get the context to fast-forward your understanding of what's going on.

Successful Competitive Intelligence

A recent article in Harvard Business Review found that 45% of competitive intelligence (CI) findings weren't used when management was making decisions about strategy. However, those companies who used the power of CI for their decision-making had four common factors:

• The CI analyst was assigned a "sign-off" authority over major decisions.

• Management was open to perspectives that were different from the internal consensus.

• The analyst's report called for proactive action more than reaction.

• The analyst was involved in product launches.

The CI analyst having sign-off for major decisions was the most important factor to getting CI used out of the four reasons above. This would indicate that the CI analyst must sit with the decision-makers and be comfortable debating and influencing others about the CI collected. They can't just drop off the slide deck and leave, but must actively champion the value and opportunity that CI brings, and make it a core component of decisions. They've also got to have "skin in the game", by having their name and research seen to be supporting decisions in a very public way that is accountable. That also helps keep the CI honest and reliable. What's not to like about that!

Retrospective Competitive Research

The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of older versions of web pages. Business researchers, and competitive intelligence professionals can use older versions of a website for company research. I have used this website to look for deleted products and branding changes, as well as tracking pricing information. It's also been great to find the names and biographies of past management. Not every web page is included but it’s a fantastic resource for building up a picture about an organisation, their products or employees.

Best Practice Competitor Research

People often get caught up in tracking every movement their competitors make  - they benchmark, look how a competitor differentiates themselves by product or service offering, and how they position themselves. All good-to-know stuff.

However, competitor or competitive research involves looking outside the boundaries of those identified competitors who do exactly what you do. You need to understand what substitutes there are for your product or service. These can include new technologies which are more convenient and cheaper or changing consumer preferences such as fashion trends or new social dynamics.

Competitors play a small part in the success of your product or service. In the end, its what your customers want that will have a much more lasting effect on the long-term success of your business.

Embrace your forgetfulness!

An article in the BRW has been extolling the virtues of forgetting what you know, and being open to getting new information that shakes up your perceptions. The author says that "if we refuse to let go of what we know when the knowledge is obsolete, it can interfere with our ability to keep up with the onslaught of change." Being an expert isn't always relevant anymore - you need to know who and where the disrupters to your world are, and they aren't necessarily in your industry right now.