The cycle, in four steps
1. Start from the questions
What decision do you need to make? Enter a channel, respond to a competitor, revisit pricing? The questions drive everything else: without them, you collect a lot and understand little. Good questions are specific: “how have competitors’ made-to-measure prices changed over the last twelve months?” rather than “what are competitors doing?”.
2. Gather from a range of sources
Websites and catalogs, press releases and annual reports, trade press, job postings, reviews, social media, live ads, trade shows, search data. Sources should be searched in the market’s language: a German competitor is best understood through the German press.
3. Verify and date every piece of information
Every data point needs its source and its date. Cross-check sources when you can, separate facts from estimates, and when a figure isn’t public, say so: a “not available” is more useful than a plausible-looking number.
4. From information to decision
The analysis answers the original question: what it means for us, what the competitor is likely to do, what we should do. This is where competitive intelligence meets strategy tools such as the SWOT or the positioning map.
What to watch
- Offering and pricing — range, price tiers, promotions, new launches.
- Channels — where they sell, through which retailers and platforms, and how much each one weighs.
- Communication — what they promise, in what tone, on which channels, with how much advertising pressure.
- Customers — who buys from them, what they say in reviews, what they can’t find.
- Moves — openings, acquisitions, partnerships, hires, investments.
- Weak signals — small changes that foreshadow a strategy.
Ethics
Competitive intelligence works with information that is public or obtained lawfully and transparently. No false identities, no confidential information obtained from former employees, no unauthorized access. Beyond being wrong, it is a legal and reputational risk.
The most common mistakes
- Gathering without questions. Plenty of data, no decisions.
- Undated sources. Information from two years ago may describe a different market.
- Made-up numbers to fill the gaps. An estimate must be labeled as one.
- Looking only at direct competitors. The threat often comes from whoever meets the same need in a different way.
- A single snapshot. Competitive intelligence pays off when it is updated and compared with the previous reading.
