Getting Started with Competitive Intelligence

This course takes a simple hands-on approach with short case studies, learning by doing, and external resources to help you go get going with competitor intelligence. You will become familiar with basic 100 level Competitive Intelligence (CI) concepts, learn how to plan for real world Competitive events, learn about industry best practices in getting started with win/loss analysis, and evolve to more advanced concepts and thought leadership in CI.

Short summary of the structure of this course:

• Introduction to important competitor intelligence concepts and step through a real world case study focused on competition at Dell EMC

• Learn how to create a competitor profile and understand your competitors

• Become aware of what specific competitive events to pay attention to and how. This will follow a real world case study of real world competitive price war at a Telecom startup

• Equip yourself with industry best practices on how to build a win loss program at your company

• Exposure to more advanced competitive intelligence concepts and thought leadership to help you evolve your thinking

• Know about SCIP (Strategic & Competitive Intelligence Professionals) and how to practice ethical CI

Detailed Course Curriculum and Description of Topics Covered in the Course:

Starts with an introduction of the instructor, his experience in competitive intelligence, and why you should even listen to this industry CI practitioner.

In session 1, you will get introduced to important competitive intelligence concepts and step through a real world case study of competition at Dell EMC:

• Why Competitive Intelligence?, How to do Competitive Intelligence?, What is Competitive Intelligence? What it is not?

• You will also learn how to apply important mental models and frameworks to apply structured thinking to competitive intelligence. Frameworks and assets like SWOT Analysis, building battle-cards, and aligning cross-functionally to be successful

• In the case study assignment, you will try to apply your judgement in how would have you planned for such competition if you were the protagonist

In session 2, you will learn  how to create a competitor profile and understand your competitors’: 

• Background: how did they get here? Why were they successful? Background influences of the CEO and leadership.

• Offers: product offerings that your competitor offers

• Results: analyzing financial results of your competitor

• Strategy: to understand the direction your competitor. Identify their strengths, weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats ahead of you. This will help you understand where your competitor is headed

• Incentives: how your competitor get paid and how these incentives can help your understand their past and future behaviors and likely actions

In session 3, you will become aware of what specific competitive events to pay attention to and how. This will follow a real world case study of real world competitive price war at a Telecom startup. Some of the types of competitive events include: 

• Competitor Hosted Annual Conference (lots of product announcements)

• New Product Launch (blog post, PR, media coverage, ….)

• Merger & Acquisition

• Changes in Leadership / Major Departures

• New Funding Round if private (reveals # employees, customers, revenue)

• Webinars

• In the case study assignment, you will try to apply your judgement in what would you have done differently in such a price war competition if you were the protagonist

In session 4, you will equip yourself with industry best practices on how to build a win loss program at your company. You will even get the opportunity to download a few win loss templates, play around with them, and be able to tailor them to your needs. Some of the types of win loss analysis covered in this session include:

• Qualitative vs. Quantitative

• Internal Company Led vs. External Third party Led

• Customer vs. Field Interviews

• CI Led vs. Product Led

In session 5, you get exposure to more advanced competitive intelligence concepts and thought leadership to help you evolve your thinking and take your own competitive intelligence function even further in maturation and practice. In this session, you get:

• Introduced to the concept of CI flywheel and how to build it using Data + Artificial Intelligence

In session 6, you learn about SCIP (Strategic & Competitive Intelligence Professionals) and how to practice ethical CI. SCIP will provide you with resources, a peer network, and how to navigate the grey area of ethics in CI. Also, how to create your own code of ethics policy

• Introduction to SCIP (Strategic & Competitive Intelligence Professionals)

• Ethics in CI

In session 6, just a quick recap with how to connect with the author on LinkedIn for both, further exploration in your CI journey and also to share your valuable and constructive feedback.

Who this course is for:

• Beginner Competitive Intelligence professionals getting started in Competitive Analysis
• Product Management professionals curious about how to differentiate their products in a competitive marketplace