Competitive Intelligence /kem'petetiv in'telijens/ : The action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing information about products, customers, competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization.
We like to look at it much more simply: To stay ahead of the competition, you need as much relevant data as possible to make good decisions. That’s where clearCi comes in. Being able to easily monitor any information or webpage online allows businesses to focus on what they do best-- running their business.
The term Competitive Intelligence is often viewed as synonymous with Competitor Analysis, but Ci is more than just analyzing competitors — it is about making the organization more competitive relative to its entire environment: customers, competitors, distributors, technologies, macro-economic data and more.
Market Intelligence vs Competitive Intelligence
Market Intelligence focuses on providing a company with a view of a market using existing sources of information to understand what is happening in that marketplace, what the issues are, and what market potential is exists. It may also concern the attitudes, opinions, behaviour, and needs of individuals and organisations within the context of their economic, environmental, social, and everyday activities. The emphasis is often on consumers – product, price, place, promotion, but of course this is not always the case.
Business Intelligence vs Competitive Intelligence
Business intelligence is concerned with Information Technology solutions for transforming the output from large data collections into intelligence; usually through the integration of sales, marketing, servicing, and support operations. It often covers such activities as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and E-commerce using Data Mining techniques.
Many practitioners have defined the key differentiation between Business Intelligence (BI) and Competitive or Market Intelligence as follows. Business Intelligence (BI) maintains an inward focus towards the organization, whereas Competitive Intelligence (CI) and Market Intelligence (MI) is typically outward focused.