Many companies know they should “do competitive intelligence” but never start, because it sounds like a big project. It does not have to be. One person working part-time can set up a programme in a month that delivers useful intelligence to the people who make decisions. Here is a week-by-week plan.
Week 1: Find out what decisions need support
Goal: a short list of key intelligence topics (KITs).
- Interview 6 to 10 decision-makers: the CEO or general manager, and the heads of sales, product, marketing and strategy. Allow 30 minutes each.
- Ask about decisions, not information:
- “What decisions are you facing in the next 6 to 12 months?”
- “What developments outside the company could hurt us most?”
- “Which competitor moves would surprise you?”
- “What did we get wrong last time because we did not see it coming?”
- Group the answers into topics. Typical results look like this:
- Will competitor X enter our core market segment next year?
- How are prices moving in segment Y?
- Which new technologies could make our product obsolete?
- How will new regulation Z affect us and our rivals?
- Rank them by importance and by how feasible they are to answer. Keep the top 3 to 5.
Deliverable: a one-page KIT list, agreed with the sponsor.
Week 2: Map sources and set up collection
Goal: a low-maintenance collection system for each KIT.
- For each KIT, list the indicators that would show change: product launches, job postings, patent filings, pricing pages, regulatory consultations, trade-show presentations.
- Map the sources for each indicator:
- Competitor websites, press releases, investor materials
- Job sites
- Patent and trademark databases
- Trade press and industry associations
- Regulators’ consultations and decisions
- Review sites and forums
- Set up monitoring: news alerts, website change monitoring, saved searches in patent databases, an RSS reader or a monitoring tool.
- Create an internal channel for field intelligence, such as a short form or chat channel where sales and service staff can report what customers say about competitors. Make it take less than a minute.
Deliverable: a source map and running alerts.
Week 3: Analyse and produce the first briefs
Goal: show value quickly.
- Pick the KIT with the most urgent decision.
- Pull together what you have, and fill gaps with targeted desk research and a few expert conversations: customers, distributors, industry analysts.
- Analyse rather than summarise. Use a competitor profile (goals, assumptions, strategy, capabilities) or a short scenario analysis. Ask “so what for us?”
- Write a one-page brief:
- Bottom line up front: the judgement in one or two sentences, with a confidence level.
- Key evidence: three to five points, with sources.
- Implications: what it means for our decision.
- What to watch: the indicators that would change the assessment.
- Deliver it in person or in the meeting where the decision is discussed, not just by email.
Deliverable: two or three briefs on the highest-priority KITs.
Week 4: Make it a routine
Goal: a sustainable rhythm.
- Agree on formats and frequency, for example:
- a monthly one-page update per KIT;
- ad-hoc alerts when an indicator fires;
- a quarterly review of KITs with leadership.
- Set up a simple repository where briefs and source notes are searchable.
- Write a short ethics policy: what methods are allowed, how confidential information is handled, and what staff should do if offered a competitor’s confidential documents (refuse and report). Many teams adopt the SCIP code of ethics as a basis.
- Plan feedback: after each major decision, ask whether intelligence helped and what was missing.
Deliverable: a calendar, a repository and an ethics policy.
Mistakes to avoid
- Collecting without questions. A newsletter of competitor news is not intelligence.
- Trying to cover everything. Credibility comes from depth on a few topics.
- Reporting facts without judgement. Decision-makers want to know what it means.
- Hiding uncertainty. Say how confident you are, and why.
- Working in isolation. The best information is often already inside the company, in sales, service, purchasing and R&D.
- Crossing ethical lines. One incident can destroy the programme and the company’s reputation.
After the first month
Once the basics run smoothly, consider adding early-warning dashboards for key indicators, war games before major moves, win/loss interviews with customers, and AI-assisted monitoring to cover more sources at lower cost. Keep the focus on decisions. A CI programme is judged by whether it helps leaders decide better, not by how much it collects.