Nowadays, business environment and competition are fiercer than ever, and the fast speed of technological development requests making the right decisions quickly on a daily basis. Every leader knows that a wrong decision resulting from the lack of market knowledge may prove to be fatal for a company while giving an advantage to its competitors.
CI – a branch of business intelligence – means the systematic collection and analysis of legally available information exclusively within legal frames, which assists decision making support for the management.
The procedure of competitor intelligence starts with a detailed, accurate analysis of the client’s needs, with its scope and direction individually tailored and focuses primarily on collecting and analyzing information regarding the external environment of the client in order to support strategic decision making, but it is also typical to involve the analysis of similar data relating to old or new competitor(s) operating in the same sector with a similar profile.
The collection and analysis of the information focuses on data from primary – experts and researchers of the given sector, suppliers, managers of competitors – and secondary – various databases, publications, expert and government analyses, reports, sectoral newsletters, annual reports of competitors, interviews by their managers, technical and patent-related news – sources.
Before investing into or entering a given market segment, it is also practical to apply the method of DUE DILIGENCE prior to making decisions.
