Competitive Intelligence 101: Build a Winning CI Program

A Step-by-Step Guide to Starting Your Competitive Intelligence Program - even if you are alone!

Ever find yourself blindsided by a competitor’s flashy product update, or worse, a customer bringing it up before you’ve even heard about it? You’re not alone.

Keeping track of what your competitors are doing isn’t just a “nice to have” anymore. Competitive Intelligence (CI) is quietly becoming a daily necessity.

Think of it as a radar for your product and go-to-market teams. The point isn’t to mirror your rivals, it’s to know what they’re up to so you can build, market, and sell smarter.

Some of the questions CI can help answer:

  • How much of a threat is that new product your competitor just launched?
  • Why are customers switching to them, or staying with you?
  • Is it worth building that shiny new feature or has someone already tried (and failed)?

When CI is done right, it becomes a quiet superpower. You start noticing patterns before others do. You avoid building things no one wants.

Who Is This Guide for?

Whether you're a marketer, a product manager, a sales professional, or stepping into your first role dedicated to CI, studying your market can help you think more strategically, and make better day-to-day decisions.

If you've ever wondered how to start gathering and using competitive insights, and are unsure where to begin, this guide is for you!

We'll walk you through the basics, the bottlenecks, and how to get quick wins, even if CI is only 5% of your job right now.

What You'll Learn

In this guide, we’ll walk you through:

  • What competitive intelligence actually is
  • How to start a simple CI program that works with your real-life workload
  • Tools and techniques that don’t require a giant budget or a full-time analyst
  • And most importantly: how to make your insights benefit your whole company

Understanding the Basics of Competitive Intelligence

What Is Competitive Intelligence?

Okay, so what is Competitive Intelligence, really?

Competitive Intelligence (CI) is the process of gathering, analyzing, and applying information about your competitors and your market. It helps you understand what's happening outside your organization so you can make better strategic decisions.

At its core, CI involves:

  • Collecting Information: Gathering data from various sources about competitors, market trends, customer preferences, and technological developments.
  • Analyzing Data: Interpreting the information to identify patterns, opportunities, and threats.
  • Applying Insights: Using the analysis to inform your strategies in marketing, product development, sales, and overall business planning.

Types of Information Gathered in CI

Information gathered as part of Competitive Intelligence can vary a lot from one company or one industry to another, but generally include :

  • Products and Services: Features and benefits, Pricing models, New product and feature launches
  • Marketing Strategies: Advertising campaigns, Content marketing efforts and Social media activities
  • Customer Feedback: Reviews and testimonials on competing products
  • Sales Tactics: Promotions and discounts, Distribution channels, Outbound efforts
  • Financial Data: Revenue reports for Public Companies, Funding rounds
  • Operational Insights: Partnerships and strategic alliances, changes in key employees or leadership
  • Technological Developments: Patents filed, Adoption of new technologies, etc

If it helps you understand what your competitors are prioritizing and how the market is reacting, it’s probably worth your attention!

A quick word on ethics

Let’s be clear: CI is not spying. If you’re pretending to be a customer on a sales call to dig for secrets, you’ve crossed a line.

Stick to public sources, respect NDAs, and don’t put your company or your reputation at risk. Good CI isn’t Corporate Espionage.

What CI can do for you

CI can impact virtually all areas of your organization, from marketing and product development to sales and overall business strategy.

It’s also a great opportunity for collaboration, as teams can discuss findings and develop a new perspective on your industry. It brings fresh insights that make day-to-day decisions easier.

Helping Marketing

  • Positioning and Messaging: Understand how competitors position themselves to craft messages that highlight your unique value.
  • Plan Campaigns: Anticipate competitors' marketing activities to time your campaigns effectively.

Guiding Product Development

For product managers, CI provides insights that can guide roadmaps and development decisions:

  • Prioritize Features: Know which features competitors offer and identify opportunities to innovate or improve on them.
  • Go faster: Prevent investing resources in features that competitors have tried and found ineffective. For example, learning that a competitor's new feature didn't resonate with customers might save you from making a similar misstep.

Supporting Sales Strategies

  • Understand Competitive Advantages: Highlighting your strengths in areas where competitors are weak.
  • Address Objections: Preparing responses to common questions or concerns that arise due to competitors' offerings.
  • Tailor Pitches: Adjusting sales approaches based on what competitors are doing in the market. If a competitor has a reputation for poor customer service, your sales team should mention it whenever they are mentioned.

Helping with Important Business Decisions

At an organizational level, CI influences broader strategic decisions:

  • Build partnerships: Identifying potential collaborators who can strengthen your market position.
  • Enter new markets: Deciding when and where to enter new markets based on competitive activity. Seeing that competitors are moving into a particular region may prompt you to accelerate your expansion plans, or reassert your focus on your core market.
  • Manage Threats: From new entrants or disruptive technologies.

Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Getting started with CI can feel like standing before a giant haystack of information.

There’s a lot to look at. Some of it’s interesting. Some of it’s noise.

Let’s talk about the most common challenges people face, especially when CI isn’t their full-time job, and how to get past them without burning out.


Limited Resources and Time Constraints

"I don't have a dedicated team or budget for CI—can I still make an impact?"

Classic. You’re already juggling roadmaps, launches, campaign deadlines, internal reviews: adding CI on top can feel like a luxury you can’t afford.

How to succeed on a limited budget

  • Leverage Free or low-cost tools: Use resources like Google Alerts for keyword monitoring, RSS feeds for following blogs, and social media platforms for updates.
  • Integrate CI into Your Routine: Spend 15–20 minutes each week scanning competitor updates while sipping your Monday morning coffee. Keep it light, but consistent.
  • Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize: Focus on just 2–3 competitors that actually matter right now. You don’t need to track everyone.

Feeling Overwhelmed and Unsure Where to Start

"There's so much information out there—how do I even begin?"

The firehose is relentless: tweets, blogs, G2 reviews, press releases, Reddit threads…

How to get started and make a quick impact

  • Set Clear Objectives: Pick a question to answer. Like, “What messaging are our top competitors using to sell to enterprise buyers?”
  • Start Small: Focus on a handful of key competitors rather than trying to monitor the entire industry. Pick those who pose the most significant threat or the most innovative ones, from which you can learn from.
  • Find CI Buddies: Every team benefits from CI, ask around and you will surely find teammates willing to help and champion your efforts.

Lack of Support or Buy-In from Others

"I'm excited about CI, but no one else cares about this but me."

It's common to face skepticism. Popular advice and startup culture have told us for a long time to “worry about your customers, not your competitors”.

How to get support for your CI Program

  • Get some quick wins early: Share small but impactful insights that can immediately benefit your team. For example, spotting something small but valuable like a competitor quietly dropping a pricing tier.
  • Tailor your comms: Sales cares about different things than product or leadership. Speak their language. Don’t just send a link, tell them what it means for them.
  • Ask for inputs: Sales reps, CS folks, and even prospects are CI goldmines. Loop them in. Ask what competitor questions come up most on calls.


What if I miss something big, or if I have to share bad news?

This one’s a mindset shift. Your job isn’t to be perfect. It’s to keep your eyes open and help the team stay grounded in reality, even when it stings.

  • Acknowledge Your Efforts: You will miss things. Everyone does. But if you’re checking in regularly, you’ll catch the stuff that matters most.
  • Embrace the Messenger Role: Sharing news about competitors' big leaps is always difficult. Indeed, your teams are working hard, and don´t want to be reminded when they are getting behind.
    Use the information for brainstorming solutions and innovations within your team. Turn challenges into opportunities by identifying how your organization can adapt or differentiate.
  • Create a no-blame culture: CI isn’t about pointing fingers.

Taking the initiative is already making a progress. Take baby steps to overcome those challenges, share quick wins, and your work will be recognized soon enough!

3 Steps to start your Competitive Intelligence Program

So, you’re convinced CI matters, your caffeine’s kicked in, and now you’re staring at a blank doc wondering where to begin!

1. Know Why You’re Doing This

Before you open another competitor blog or Google some press releases, take five minutes to write down a simple question:

“What’s one thing I want to help my team do better using CI?”

This could be:

  • Help the sales team win more deals against Competitor Z
  • Avoid wasting dev time on AI features that already flopped elsewhere
  • Nail the positioning for our upcoming launch
  • Support our CEO with punchy insights for the next board deck

Without an anchor, you’ll collect interesting-but-useless trivia (“Wow, their CEO used to be in fintech!”). With a goal in mind, you’ll filter info through a strategic lens.

Pro Tip: Turn your goal into a quick metric, like “Improve win rate against Competitor Z from 45% to 55% by end of Q3.” Something you can point to later when someone asks if CI is worth the effort (it is).


2. Focus on the Right Competitors First

Here’s a common trap: trying to track everyone. Don't. You don’t need a 47-row spreadsheet with every adjacent tool that’s ever raised a Series A.

Start with 3–5 competitors. Pick the ones who either:

  • Show up most often in deals
  • Have the loudest marketing presence
  • Are building similar products for the same audience
  • Are suddenly raising a lot of money and hiring like crazy

Understanding and Prioritizing Different Types of Competitors

The most important criteria to determine a competitor's relevance is the Share of the Market you are targeting: focus on competitors with a significant or growing presence. Then, consider Product Similarity and Customer Overlap, prioritize those whose offerings closely match yours or competitors with a different offering, targeting the same customer segments.

You can use the following analysis to classify your competitors into 3 different types.

Direct Competitors:

  • Offer similar products or services to the same target market.
  • Example: If you sell project management software, think Jira or Monday, other companies offering similar software are direct competitors.

Indirect Competitors:

  • Offer alternative solutions that fulfill the same customer need.
  • Example: Companies providing general productivity tools, like Notion, that customers might use instead of your project management software.

Potential Competitors:

  • New entrants or startups that could disrupt the market.
  • Example: A startup introducing innovative collaboration technology that could replace traditional project management tools.

Action Steps

Listing your Competitors

  1. Brainstorm: List competitors to monitor, including direct, indirect, and potential ones.
  2. Gather Input: Ask colleagues from sales, marketing, and product teams to ensure no one is overlooked.
  3. Research Each Competitor: Collect information about their offerings, target market, and general strategy.
  4. Rank Them: Use the criteria above to prioritize competitors.
  5. Focus Your Efforts: Start with the top three to five big ones.

Creating Competitor Profiles

For each competitor, create a profile that includes:

  • Company overview
  • Products and services
  • Target audience
  • Unique selling propositions
  • Strengths and weaknesses


3. Start Collecting Info

With your competitor list ready, it's time to start collecting information.

Use What You Already Have

  • Customer Feedback : Collect insights directly from customers about why they chose your product over others or vice versa.
  • Sales Team Insights : Set up briefings where sales reps can share observations from the field.
  • Win/Loss Analysis: Analyze deals won or lost to competitors to understand strengths and weaknesses.

Track What’s Public

  • Competitor Product Pages: Note any updates to products, features, or pricing.
  • Blogs and News Sections: Stay informed about announcements, thought leadership articles, and company news.
  • Help Centers: If you want all the details of how a feature works.

Press Releases, News Articles and Industry Events

  • Industry Publications: Subscribe to magazines, journals, or newsletters covering your industry.
  • Conferences and Webinars: Participate in industry conferences, webinars, and workshops where competitors might present.
  • Professional Associations: Become a member of industry associations or online communities. Participate in forums and discussions. Be careful with what you share, but don´t disregard those opportunities to learn from each other.

Tools like Google Alerts, Feedly, and yes, just checking their websites, can go a long way. No need to overengineer it (yet).

Competitor Intelligence Tools and Techniques

CI does not means hiring a team, buying an expensive platform, and becoming a full-time analyst. Nope. You just need the right tools for your level of effort, and some common sense on what to track.

Here’s how to set up a lightweight, low-maintenance CI stack.

Our practical guide to creating a Competitor Dashboard for your company is a great way to start.


Start with Manual Research

You don’t need to “tool up” on Day One. Some of the best insights come from slow, boring, manual processes. Seriously.

Regularly Review Competitor Websites

Competitor websites are treasure troves of information. Make it a habit to:

  • Explore Product and Service Pages: Note important updates to offerings, features, or pricing.
  • Read Blog Posts and Articles: Gain insights into their content strategy, thought leadership, and get their general perspective on your industry.
  • Check News and Press Release Sections: Stay informed about major announcements, partnerships, or organizational changes.

Pro Tip: Don´t get lost in doomscrolling. It’s easy to get caught up. Always have a goal in mind, and log significant updates you find during your reviews.

Subscribe to Newsletters and Email Updates

Sign up for your competitors' newsletters to receive updates directly in your inbox. This allows you to:

  • Monitor Marketing Messages: Understand how they communicate with their audience.
  • Stay Alert to Promotions: Be aware of special offers, events, or product launches.
  • Gain Insight into Content Strategy: See what topics they prioritize in their communications.

Pro Tip: Consider using a dedicated email address for subscriptions to keep your inbox organized and share with colleagues.

Listen to Social Networks

Social media platforms offer real-time insights into competitor activities and customer sentiment.

  • Follow Competitor Accounts: Keep tabs on their posts, engagement levels, and follower growth.
  • Monitor Hashtags and Mentions: See what others are saying about them.
  • Respectfully engage with people: It’s okay to ask questions and comment on competitor posts, even using your own company account.

Talk to Customers, Colleagues and Attend Industry Events

This in-person side of Competitor Intelligence is often underlooked but often yields rich insights.

  • Customer Feedback: Engage with customers to learn about their experiences with competitors. Offer to sit on important calls with your salespeople.
  • Sales and Support Teams: Your colleagues on the front lines can provide anecdotes and observations that aren't available elsewhere.
  • Participate in webinars, conferences, and workshops where competitors might present.

Pro tip: When attending Industry Events, collect brochures, slide decks, or any distributed materials. Bring them home to your colleagues in Marketing and Product. (Salespeople probably have already snagged their own copies!)


Free and Low-Cost Tools

While manual methods are essential, they can be time-consuming. Free and low-cost tools can automate some of your CI tasks and are generally a good way to start automating things.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts
Google Alerts

Set up Google Alerts to receive email notifications when new content matching your specified keywords appears online.

  1. Go to Google Alerts.
  2. Enter Keywords: Use competitor names, industry terms, or specific product names.
  3. Customize Settings: Choose how often you want to receive alerts and from which sources.
  4. Monitor Your Inbox: Stay updated with the latest mentions.

RSS Feeds

While not all websites support it, RSS feeds allow you to aggregate updates from multiple websites in one place.

  1. Choose an RSS Reader: Popular options include Feedly and Inoreader, which also have Premium plans tailored to CI use cases.
  2. Subscribe to Feeds: Add the RSS feeds of your competitors' blogs, news sections, or other relevant sites.
  3. Organize Your Feeds: Categorize them by competitor or topic for easier navigation.
  4. Regularly Review: Check your reader to stay informed about the latest posts. Unsubscribe from noisy or useless sources.

Social Media Monitoring Tools

These tools help you track social media activity and mentions of your competitors. Some free options include : Hootsuite, TweetDeck and Social Mention.

  • Set Up Streams or Feeds: Focus on competitor accounts, relevant hashtags, or keywords.
  • Monitor Engagement: Observe likes, shares, comments, and overall engagement trends.
  • Analyze Content Strategies: Note the types of content competitors are posting and how their audience responds.

Website Change Monitoring Tools

Those are great to keep track of changes in pricing on your competitor websites. Free Options include Visualping and ChangeDetection.

  1. Select Pages to Monitor: Choose important pages like pricing, product features, or announcements.
  2. Set Up Alerts: Configure the tool to notify you of any changes.
  3. Review Changes: Analyze what updates have been made and consider their implications.

Competitor Intelligence Platforms, AI, and Automated Monitoring

Illustration friendly robot

Get started quickly with a dedicated Competitor Intelligence Platform

At some point, the Google Docs and Slack threads stop cutting it.

You’ve got competitor updates scattered across your inbox, screenshots buried in a shared drive, and three different people asking, “Wait, didn’t someone mention this last week?”

That’s when you know it’s time to centralize.

If CI is becoming more than just a side project, or you just want to stay organized from day one, a dedicated Competitor Intelligence Platform can make life a lot easier.

Why bother with a dedicated tool?

Because without one, you’re stuck duct-taping your CI workflow together with half a dozen tools and hoping everyone checks the right folder. A good CI platform does the heavy lifting for you.

Here’s what the right one helps with:

1. Everything in One Place

Forget digging through Notion pages or re-Googling that press release. With a proper platform, you’ve got a centralized home for Competitor Profiles, Insights, and Win/Loss Analysis results.

It makes it easy to organize, search and surface the right info at the right time.

2. Automated Monitoring

Instead of manually checking competitor sites or news feeds, the platform watches them for you.

  • New blog post? Logged.
  • Pricing update? Flagged.
  • CEO goes on a podcast and quietly hints at a new direction? Captured.

Real-time alerts keep you in the loop, without living in a browser tab jungle.

3. AI Summaries That Cut Through the Noise

Modern CI platforms (like PeerPanda, just saying) use AI to pull out what matters.

Instead of reading an entire press release, you get:

  • “Competitor X launched Feature Y”
  • “They're targeting enterprise buyers now”
  • “They tell everything about it in their upcoming webinar on June 6”

Don’t waste time wading through fluff.

4. Battlecards, Reports, and Dashboards

No more last-minute decks thrown together before a sales call. You can build:

  • Living battlecards that update automatically
  • Dashboards for leadership
  • Competitor timelines for product teams to track major changes

And yes, you can export or share them with whoever needs them, without teaching them how to use yet another tool.

Is a CI platform right for you?

If any of this sounds familiar, it might be time:

  • You’re the go-to “competitor person” and you’re hitting the limits of your own system
  • Sales keeps asking for updated battlecards, and you’re manually rewriting the same points
  • Your PMs are constantly surprised by competitor launches (and a little annoyed)
  • You’re wasting hours each month cobbling together updates for leadership

Or… maybe you just want to look organized and proactive without losing your evenings to competitive research. That’s valid too.

Why teams like yours start with PeerPanda

PeerPanda was built for product and GTM teams at SaaS companies who don’t have time to mess around. It’s simple, structured, and even fun!

With PeerPanda, you can:

  • Track competitors automatically across multiple channels
  • Summarize changes with AI
  • Share insights with product, sales, and execs - without the back-and-forth

Get your CI Program started with PeerPanda

No credit card. No sales pitch. Just jump in and see for yourself!

Get Started for free

Structuring Your Competitive Intelligence Program

Having gathered tools and techniques, the next step is to structure your CI program to organize your CI activities.

In this section, we'll explore how to develop a plan, integrate CI into your daily workflow, and share your insights.


Start With a Simple Plan

Creating a structured plan for your CI activities provides a roadmap that guides your efforts and keeps you focused on your objectives.

Set Goals, Timelines and Milestones

Identify immediate tasks, such as setting up monitoring tools or compiling competitor profiles. Some projects will require implementing specific tools or training people. Do this early to get bandwidth from other teams if needed.

Assign Roles and Responsibilities

If you’re solo, be honest with yourself about how much time you can realistically give CI. Set a weekly recurring calendar block and guard it.

If you’ve got others onboard (lucky you), get clear on who’s doing what:

  • Sales shares intel from customer calls
  • Product marketing owns battlecards or positioning updates
  • Product managers flag competitor features or roadmap shifts
  • CS surfaces customer feedback or churn reasons

Just make sure people know CI isn’t someone else’s job.

Build a Rhythm That Doesn’t Burn You Out

Consistency is key. Making CI a seamless part of your routine ensures that it does not become something "extra”, that you only do when you have free time (you never have).

Here’s a sample cadence to steal:

  • Weekly (5–10 min): Check alerts, skim competitor news, log anything urgent.
  • Monthly (30 min): Review changes, update key profiles, flag anything useful for sales or product.
  • Quarterly (1 hr): Pull together a simple digest for leadership. What changed? What matters? What might impact us?

Pro tip: Sync your CI updates with existing rituals - Monday standups, monthly OKR reviews, launch planning sessions. If you try to run it separately, it’ll feel optional.


Document and Share Insights

What will be your source of truth on competitor data? How will you share important news? How will you ensure that salespeople effectively use insights on competitors to prepare their customer calls?

Gathering information is important, but it’s useless without the proper communication channels in place.

Create a single source of truth for competitor information

The best intel in the world is useless if no one knows where to find it.

So pick a spot. Name it clearly. Stick to it.

Could be:

  • A “Competitive Intel” hub in Notion
  • A Slack channel with a pinned battlecard link
  • A PeerPanda workspace

What matters most: keep it clean, current, and easy to navigate.

And when something becomes outdated? Archive or delete it. Outdated info kills trust faster than no info at all.

Share Insights with your Company

When sharing insights, less is more. You don’t need to write formal reports every week. In fact, please don’t.

When you find something useful:

  • Summarize it in plain English
  • Add one sentence about why it matters
  • Tag the people who care

Setup Communication Channels

Getting creative in your communication is a great way to draw engagement and attention to your CI program. Here are some ideas that you can implement in your company:

  • Small CI Focus in Company Meetings: Present findings during team meetings or company all-hands.
  • Setup a dedicated Slack or Teams Channel: Where everyone can share news and insights
  • Weekly or Monthly Newsletters: Share CI highlights with relevant teams.
  • Breaking News Updates: Special reports for when a competitor does something big
  • Sales Battlecards: Find ways to incorporate insights on competitor weak points


Encourage Feedback and Engagement

CI is a deeply collaborative activity. Encourage team members to provide feedback on CI reports and share their perspectives. Sales, Product and even Customer Success can contribute their side of the story.

Also, take the time to regularly evaluate how well your CI activities meet the needs of your company, and make changes to your documentation and communication methods based on feedback.

Best Practices for Effective Competitive Intelligence

Implementing Competitive Intelligence (CI) effectively requires more than just gathering and analyzing data. It involves adhering to ethical standards, continuously improving your skills, and fostering collaboration across your organization.


Keep It Ethical (No, Seriously)

Adhering to laws and regulations is obviously non-negotiable. Also, ensure the information you use was obtained ethically. That's surefire way to damage your own reputation, and break trust.

Key Ethical Principles

Drawing inspiration from the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) Code of Ethics, here are some fundamental principles to guide your CI activities:

  1. Compliance with Laws: Always follow all applicable laws, both domestic and international.
  2. Transparency: Accurately disclose your identity and organization when conducting interviews or seeking information.
  3. Conflict Avoidance: Steer clear of conflicts of interest that could compromise your objectivity.
  4. Honesty in Recommendations: Provide honest, realistic insights and conclusions.
  5. Promote Ethical Practices: Encourage ethical behavior within your organization and the broader CI community.
  6. Alignment with Company Policies: Ensure your CI activities align with your company's objectives and guidelines.

dos-and-dont

Dos and Don'ts for Ethical CI

Dos

  • Use Public Sources: Gather information from publicly available resources such as websites, press releases, social media, and public filings.
  • Respect Confidentiality: Honor any non-disclosure agreements and respect proprietary information.
  • Be Transparent: If you're conducting interviews or surveys, clearly state who you are and the purpose of your inquiry.
  • Document Sources: Keep records of where you obtained information for accountability and verification.

Don'ts

  • Don't Misrepresent Yourself: Avoid using false identities or deceptive practices to obtain information.
  • Don't Engage in Espionage: Steer clear of illegal activities such as hacking, theft, or bribery.
  • Don't Exploit Insider Information: Do not use confidential information from former employees or partners improperly.
  • Don't Ignore Laws and Regulations: Be aware of and comply with laws related to privacy, data protection, and intellectual property.
  • Don't Share Sensitive Information Inappropriately: Protect your organization's confidential information and respect that of others.

Teach ethical considerations during the training of new members, and ensure everyone in your organization is aware of the risks of doing things the bad way.


Mak Competitive Intelligence a Team Sport

CI works way better when it’s not just your job.

The most valuable insights often come from casual conversations, Slack threads, sales calls. But to capture those moments, your company needs a culture where CI is a shared habit.

Break Down Silos

CI isn’t just for product marketing. Or PMs. Or sales enablement.

So invite others in. Not with a lecture. With curiosity.

Here’s what that can look like:

  • Sales: “Seen any new competitor talk tracks in deals lately?”
  • PMs: “Heard of any launches we should keep on the radar?”
  • Customer success: “Have any churned accounts mentioned why they left?”

Set Up Lightweight Ways to Share

The trick here is not to create a brand new process. Just plug into the places where people are already talking.

A few ideas:

  • Slack/Teams channel for competitive news
    Give it a clear name, like #competitor-updates, and keep it casual. Link new insights. Ask questions.
  • Quick shares in team meetings
    Take 2 minutes in a weekly sync to mention “Hey, here’s what Competitor X did last week.” That’s it. No slide decks.
  • Drop CI into project docs
    Building a new feature? Add a quick section: “How others do this.” You’d be amazed how often that sparks useful discussion.

Celebrate the Little Wins

CI often has delayed payoffs, you catch a pattern, you share an insight, and weeks later someone mentions it helped in a deal or decision.

So when that happens? Share it. Out loud. And give credit.

Make It a Two-Way Street

The best CI setups help everyone in the company do their jobs better.

So don’t just ask for intel, give people something useful in return.

  • For sales, that’s battlecards or objection-handling nuggets
  • For PMs, that’s early signals about what’s trending or failing
  • For marketing, that’s how others are positioning around the same problem, and key topics they are talking about in their communications

TL;DR: Make CI Feel Like a Team Advantage, Not a Homework Assignment

People won’t contribute to CI just because it’s “important.”
They’ll contribute because it’s helpful, easy to engage with, and even fun!

Going Further: 9 Ideas to Become the CI Champion in Your Company

Build Your Skillset

  • Learn to leverage AI: Find how ChatGPT and AI assistants can help you summarize data, write reports, and provide you feedback on your work.
  • Develop communication skills: Practice makes perfect! Give presentations, practice tailoring your messages to different mediums and stakeholders. Seek feedback and continuously improve.

Create Value For Your Organization

  • Make your work visible. Spot something truly game changing? Share it as a Breaking News!
  • Track impact metrics: Measure how CI insights have influenced decisions, revenue growth, or win rates.
  • Share case studies and success stories: Document successful projects where CI played a pivotal role. Everyone loves a good story on how spotting a competitor's price change helped steal customers who were on the fence of leaving.
  • Meet regularly with stakeholders and leadership: Don't work on your own. Find ways you can help.

Create a culture of competitive awareness

  • Encourage Intel Sharing: Set up forums or channels where team members can share insights.
  • Recognize Contributions: Acknowledge and reward those who actively participate in CI initiatives.
  • Offer Training Sessions: Educate colleagues about the value and basics of CI.

Wrapping It Up

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! You’re already doing more than most teams when it comes to Competitive Intelligence.

CI isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being aware. Aware of what your competitors are doing, where your market’s headed, and how your product can stand out.

It’s about catching patterns early, helping your team make sharper calls, and occasionally saving everyone from wasting three sprints building something that no one ends up using.

You don’t need to track everything.
You don’t need to have it all figured out.
You just need to start.

TL;DR Recap

  • CI matters: product and GTM teams need to move faster, with more confidence.
  • Start small: don’t overcomplicate it.
  • Use what you’ve got: manual methods are fine at first.
  • Organize it: pick a central source of truth and build a rhythm.
  • Share it: context is more valuable than volume.

Want to save even more time and get everything in one place?

Track Competitors, Get Notifications, Share Insights

Get Started for free

Become a Competitor Intelligence Expert