Are you still trying to decide if using competitive intelligence is worth the time and money?- Determine the benefits. List all the ways competitive intelligence can benefit your company. This can include a greater awareness about your competitors and the ability to spot market trends.
- What are the costs? You will also need to calculate the potential costs of competitive intelligence. Costs will vary depending on if you outsource or if you decide to do all the work internally. Determine how using the process will affect your business if you give some of your employees the part time task of gather and analyzing information. Keep in mind that the notion of “cost” doesn’t just encompass money. Loss of time and resources can also be considered a cost.
- How important is knowledge? Knowledge isn’t something you can calculate. You don’t know if your knowledge is going to be helpful until you actually use it. But, keep in mind that a company that has knowledge is more likely to end up with the competitive advantage. How important is this to you?
- What if you don’t know? Consider what would happen if you didn’t have the right knowledge so you missed out on an important opportunity or didn’t notice one of your competitors until it was too late. Can you determine how detrimental a mistake like that could be to your company?
- Return on Investment. It also may be helpful to determine what your return on investment or ROI will be. For example, if you determine that it will cost $10,000 to implement the process, how much more money do you project to make? If you make an additional $50,000 in revenue because of competitive intelligence, then the process will be worth it.
Competitive Intelligence