Methods and tools for creative competitive intelligence

Competition is a necessary condition and important recipe to conducting business activities effectively. Today’s economic reality generates the need for business leaders to obtain information about the activities of their competitors.

Competitive intelligence (CI) is another marketing research technique purposed to collect and process information about competitors, for making managerial decisions on further strategy and tactics of running business, in order to increase competitiveness of an enterprise. It is carried out in a lawful manner and in compliance with ethical standards. The subject of CI is existing and potential competitors.

What Does Competitive Intelligence Analyst Do?

The structure of a competitor study is designed in the following way:

• collection of all available information about competitor in open databases;
• requesting data from the competitor (over the phone or via e-mail);
• identification of competitor’s suppliers and customers, finding out their opinions about competitor’s performance (via conversations);
• visiting competitor’s office on the excuse of acquiring services or applying for a job.

After all necessary information is collected, marketing analyst has to process obtained data and adapt it for goals of client’s strategic management.

Methods and Tools For Creative Competitive Intelligence

In Scheduling Worldwide, marketing specialists seek for invention, focusing on innovative and creative activities. In case of creative intelligence, they aim to combine CI and innovation in the following way:

• acquiring information requested by the client;
• processing data obtained;
• shaping evidence;
• sharing findings;
• create knowledge, valuable for the client;
• identify, research and monitor trends;
• identify innovative spaces, useful for further research analytics;
• make discoveries in development stages;
• identify creation paths, which have not been previously dealt with;
• develop original strategies;
• anticipate innovation strategies;
• form new points of reference.

Generally speaking, creative CI can be described as a type of intelligence, which objective is to inspire creative specialists who conduct such market research, or to be able to signal opportunities for innovative developments for the strategies of an organisation. Marketing experts look for creation zones which are unexploited and neglected, as well as monitor the emergence of new ideas, new products, discoveries in every domain and innovations.

When the subject of intelligence focuses on creations and innovations, then creative CI should be characterised by the ways of identifying weak signals, formatting trends, and employing inspiration techniques.

If you are interested in this form of competitive intelligence, please feel free to explore our website and to contact us, and our experts will implement their knowledge and experience, using all possible methods in order to get intelligence information you need.

(Article material adapted from the book by Stéphane Goria)