Competitive Intelligence 

Competitive intelligence is the process of using public information sources to learn how similar businesses operate in today's marketplace. It provides much needed information about pricing strategies, marketing innovations, building brand loyalty, expanding product lists, and enhancing customer relationships.

In the past competitive intelligence gathering was an expensive activity that only the biggest companies could afford. CI on the Net is considerably cheaper and is available to even the smallest business.

Competitive intelligence is really about learning—learning from the competition. It's not about stealing ideas (nobody can copyright those). It's not unethical; it's smart.

The key to competitive intelligence is using search engines and directories effectively.

What Are They Saying About Your Competition

First You Have to Find Them

• Make a list of your known competitors, both local and national.
• Use Yahoo and Lycos Yellow Pages to expand the list.
• Use a meta-search engine, like Dogpile or MetaCrawler, to find links to these companies.
• Search using keywords that describe your products or services and you will find companies that may be your new competitors.

Then You Can Evaluate Them

• If your competition is a publicly traded company, check Yahoo Finance for profile, stock history, news links, analysts' opinions, and links to SEC documents. Yahoo also sponsors web forums for most stocks, but they are filled with rumors, hype, and hope. Entertaining but not particularly useful.
• Visit their websites. Try to figure what they are trying to do online.
  • Are they online to make money, save money, or just to have something to brag about on the golf course?
  • How are they using ecommerce?
  • How are they building or enhancing customer relationships?
  • What do you like or dislike about their websites?
  • What can your company do better—both on and off-line?
• Check Google News for print articles about your competition.
• Use Marketleap's free services to find out how popular these sites are and how the search engines rank them.

When you finish looking at your competition, follow the same process to find out what is being said about your company on the Net.