You are a busy person and taking time to read this is a significant investment for you.

You know what it is like to create and run a business successfully in a market environment that is highly competitive and requires that everyone on your teams understands and contributes to the mission that you have defined. Executing the current business is difficult enough without the ever present and pressing complications of competition. Yet, competition is real and what others do makes a difference to your success or failure. Competitive intelligence can help you navigate through the complexities of the competitive environment better.

Alignment leading to tangible results in market share, revenue and profits is what you are after. Your goal is strategies that mobilize the organization and point the right way forward. There are five common imperatives that you have and several ways that competitive intelligence can help you.

• Protect the current business. Operational issues are important because today’s business funds tomorrow’s investments. Current products must be sold. Current customers must be serviced. How are you doing compared to your major competitors? Would benchmarking show more that you have more advantages or disadvantages?
  Compare selling and business development strategies with competitors, benchmark your operations and analyze customer decision-making criteria.
• Mobilize the organization. No important competitor is passive. Dedicated people at those companies are working to shape the future in their favor rather than yours. Their strategies are being implemented and you need to know what they are and what they mean to your strategies. One person cannot possibly do this alone. However, a well trained and focused team can do it and win. What would it mean to you to have your organization highly tuned to the competitive environment?
  Provide periodic competitive news and alerts, implement information sharing tools and train teams to identify important competitive intelligence issues.

• Read the rest of this entry

You know what it is like to define and shepherd a product through the long process of development and then face the ultimate marketplace judgment about your efforts. There are so many times that you would pay handsomely for credible information that helped you decide on the right strategy, select the right market, position correctly versus your competitors and, of course, reach your revenue and profit goals. Good competitive intelligence addressees all of those questions.

Your job is to champion one or more products for your company. Each product needs to be successful in a marketplace crowded with existing competitors. New threats emerge over time that you have to anticipate and proactively manage. Development teams count on your guidance to build the product with the right features. Your general manager relies on you to help deliver the needed revenues and profits. All along the way, you have to understand the environment, explain your recommendations and justify the company’s investments for your product. This is not a job for the timid.

Competitive Intelligence Helps With the Challenges

Alice heard Bob before she saw him. Talking rapidly on the phone and carrying a set of PowerPoint slides, Bob came bursting around the corner toward his office where Alice had been waiting patiently. With the barest nod of his head, he passed Alice and continued his phone conversation as he sat down at his desk. Something appeared to be up.

Alice was miffed. Bob was 15 minutes late to a meeting that he had asked for earlier in the day. Ostensibly they were going to discuss his upcoming meeting with his boss where Bob had to explain how to recover from various competitive attacks. Now that he had shown up, he was distracted by what appeared to be an emergency.

Alice had to admit that he seemed different from earlier that day. The tentativeness was gone and the energy that most associated with Bob was evident. She could understand why he was successful with his product line for so long. He was decisive, passionate and hard working. She waited from him to finish his call.

Bob finally hung up the phone and looked at her. “Come in, Alice,” he said.

“Sounds like you had an emergency today, Bob,” ventured Alice.

“You might say that,” replied Bob. “Do you know about the conference coming up in a couple of weeks? Well, we had some plans to make a splash there by announcing a new product. Guess who just preempted up.”

“I suppose it would be one of our competitors,” Alice answered.

“Yes, and not just any competitor. It’s those guys over at Advanced Products. They seem to delight in sticking it to us. This isn’t the first time that they have pulled a stunt like this. Seems like they are determined to keep the press focus off of us,” Bob said with a hint of anger.

Anyone that works in competitive intelligence deals with tough questions. Sometimes they concern specific competitors. Other times there are challenging issues about important trends. Making sense of copious details can consume a CI professional’s time. These questions arise during the execution of our jobs. Answering them is tough and specific to the assignment.

However, a different set of questions can be more difficult to answer.

These questions are fundamental and overarching. They are unrelated to a specific analysis technique or task. Instead, people ask them to understand relationships, value and the possible impacts of competitive intelligence. They are especially relevant to establishing a competitive intelligence function in an organization or when entering an organization as a consultant. Without good answers, the competitive intelligence person is vulnerable to “side tracking.” Side tracking inhibits a CI person from delivering the value that they have to the client because they are unable to answer fundamental  questions well.

Here are the 5 most difficult competitive intelligence questions and a possible answer to each.