Chapter 1 of 7 · 6 min
What competitor intelligence is — and what it is not
Competitor intelligence is the practice of reading what your competitors have already made public and using it to decide what to change about your own business. It is not about them at all — it is about you, with a clearer view of the market. The moment the exercise starts producing plans about the competitor rather than plans about you, you're in the wrong exercise.
The two-sentence test
Every finding in a competitor benchmark should pass both sentences. If it fails either one, discard it.
- 'Is this something a customer or the platform has already published to the public?' — if no, don't use it.
- 'Does this end in a change we make about our own operation?' — if no, it's gossip, not intelligence.
The goal is never to attack a competitor's reputation. It is to close a gap in your own. If you can't state the finding as 'we will do X differently,' you don't have a finding.