What Is Competitive Intelligence

Hunger for Information

The modern economic reality creates the need for enterprise managers to obtain information on their real and potential competitors activities using a special tools and methods. Their combination forms competitive intelligence (CI), which is a business intelligence component.

The business intelligence subject is studying the totality of business community from lobbying bills to other companies’ business strategies, while Competitive intelligence is focused specifically on studying activities of enterprise’s direct business rivals, that are operating with it in the same competitive market sectors.

What is Competitive Intelligence Goal?

Gathering information about the company’s competitors activity, their business opportunities and weaknesses can be identified as the purpose of conducting BI events. Obtained results become a stable basis for developing your own strategies, intercepting significant customers or market sectors, and preventing competing products or services from entering the markets without violating current legislation requirements.

The common CI goals are:

• determining the competing company’s strategy, which is not available in open sources. The knowledge based on comparison of all competitor’s steps and identification of his true intentions will help a customer company to formulate its own strategy, taking into account understanding competitors’ intentions;
• determination of competitors’ potential and capabilities, strengths and weaknesses, their true assessment. Knowing this will help either weaken the competing business strengths, or use weaknesses to create your competing offer;
• identification of competitors’ security services strengths and weaknesses, which will allow obtaining necessary information with less effort;
• assessment of general industry state and identification of opportunities to weaken competitors by striking them together with other representatives in the same business community;
• assessment of potential partners and customers, choosing those whose interaction will become most beneficial for the company;
• creation of any favorable conditions for the customer company activities.

Product Testing in Marketing Research

For successful market promotion of a product, you should be provided with reliable and timely information about the current market state and its development trends. Marketing research is the main source for such information. In this paper we would like to consider testing features as a marketing research procedure in terms of competitive intelligence.

In CI study, the main task of consumer product testing procedure is to assess competitive environment: identify all advantages that competitive product gives to customers, his main priorities in comparison with other similar products. This procedure is aimed at helping manufacturers make the best decision on the sales promotion strategy.

We advise carrying out a study regularly at a specific time interval, usually once a year. Testing allows to evaluate changes in consumer preferences, evaluate competitive environment, highlight a leading brand in the market, and make comparison between products.

Consumer Product Testing

Overall, we can distinguish the following testing types depending on research subject:

• product concept testing;
• product testing;
• packaging and product name testing;
• price testing.

If you need to test a product that has being present for a long time on the market, then the purpose of research is to determine how much the product’s position on the market has changed over a certain period of time. If a new product is being tested, then the main question will be “Is this new product really better than those that already exist?”

In consumer product testing, customer reactions are analyzed and interpreted: how they perceive, feel, evaluate the appearance, smell, structure, taste, sound of a product, etc. This investigation can be organized as “blind” or as “specific testing”.

“Blind testing” implies that research participants’ attention should be focused directly on a product itself. During “Specific testing” a product is packaged in its original packaging. In this case, packaging design, product brand, etc. have their effect.

Product Testing in Software Testing

Advanced digital technologies are capable of attracting new customers, converting them into regular consumers. Our research company can help you perform quality control of your software, which includes planning, compiling tests, conducting testing and results analysis:

• check the conformity of requirements stated to the product and actually implemented functionality, carried out by observing its work in artificially created situations and on a limited set of tests selected in a certain way;
• system assessment in order to find differences between what the system should be and what it is.

You can learn more about digital product testing performed by Scheduling Worldwide marketing specialists here.