According to Evalueserve Survey 2021, an average enterprise’s competitive intelligence team has three to five people serving more than 500 internal stakeholders. Meanwhile, PwC reports that 56% of executives plan to conquer the market and monitor their competitors through competitive intelligence.
One way to lessen the burden on the competitive intelligence team and increase their efficiency is through artificial intelligence. Companies can pair AI with human intelligence to improve their CI efforts.
In fact, AI’s impact on marketing is expected to value at $40 billion by 2025.
When rolling out such an approach, teams must survey their stakeholders to understand their information to do their jobs efficiently.
The Ultimate Guide to Integrating AI into Competitive Intelligence Programs
Here are some questions to ask stakeholders.
How often do you read competitive intelligence?
This will tell you how often you need to send
competitive intelligence newsletters on average to the stakeholders. Will a
weekly newsletter do better than a monthly option? Or is the opposite true?
Where are you getting your competitive intelligence?
It’s also important to know where the stakeholders are
getting their CI from. Is it coming directly from the competitors’ websites? Or
are reviews and business ads being used?
What type of intelligence would help you do your job
better?
CI can be categorized into tactical intelligence,
myopic-oriented, or long-term-focused strategic intelligence. 90% of Fortune 500 companies are using one
type or another of competitive intelligence.
Businesses need to know which type of intelligence will
help stakeholders do better at their jobs.
What tool(s) are you accessing it in?
What tools are the stakeholders using? Some options
include Crunchbase, Talkwalker Alerts, Ahrefs, Owletter, Wappalyzer,
SimilarWeb, Moat, and Hootsuite.
Why do you look up competitive intelligence?
Businesses use competitive intelligence to understand
their competitors in terms of pricing, marketing tactics, and business
intelligence. They also need to know the reason for their stakeholders’ CI
needs.
What is the level of granularity you’re looking for?
The level of granularity in a data set will determine how
well your stakeholders can do their jobs with it. Will a broad overview or
“big data” be more useful in that regard? Or does the stakeholder
need specific details to make better business decisions?
The answer to this question will give businesses an
idea about how much value they can get from AI if they’re looking for ROI.
What type of content are you interested in? (i.e.,
news, reviews, secondary research, primary research, data analysis, quarterly
reports, BI summaries, etc.)
The answer to this question will help you deliver the
most relevant content to stakeholders to ensure their optimal performance.
According to Inc, 73% of the gathered data is unused by
companies for analytical purposes.
By focusing on the type of content stakeholders are
interested in, companies may increase the amount of data they use for
decision-making.
If you were to start receiving CI, how often would you
like to get it?
Would they prefer a monthly newsletter or a weekly
report? The answer to this question helps determine how often stakeholders need
intel.
What tools would be useful to have it available in?
You can use this answer to deploy tools that match your stakeholders’
preferences. The result will be better CI, and ultimately, better stakeholder
performance.
What format would you like it in? (summary, article
list, battle card, etc.)
There are hundreds of industry-specific resources
available to help companies stay competitive in different fields. It’s best to
provide this information to your stakeholders in their preferred format so that
they can work with it in the best possible way.
What types of decisions are you making using
competitive intelligence?
Stakeholders can use CI to use different decisions,
including purchasing decisions, strategy development, and future product
features. Therefore, it’s important to understand what the CI uses to provide
relevant intel to stakeholders.
