Competitive Intelligence

Understanding your category space is crucial in responding strategically to competitive actions. But sometimes you do not need a full deep dive, but rather just an understanding of the basic landscape that your competitors occupy. Competitive landscape audits are an analysis that favors breadth over depth to classify competitors as primary, secondary or tertiary threats.

By answering questions such as:

• Who are my chief competitors?
• What are the key events in my industry category?
• What will be future drivers that I need to react to?

…your organization will be in an advantageous position to overcome competitive obstacles.

Once you have identified your closest competition you must understand as much about them as possible. Competitive snapshots drill down on a small set of primary competitors (typically 1-3) to gain actionable intelligence on everything from product development and distribution to pricing strategies and brand positioning. Snapshots prioritize depth over breadth to gather key criteria on competitors so that you can stay ahead and react strategically.

Trends are more than just fleeting changes in style or design. They represent societal forces that can shift entire categories. Trend Modeling is not about the trends themselves. It is an examination of how trends gain traction and become forces that move markets and change minds. This analysis process examines various tractions, such as cultural and commercial elements, to understand how ideas become viable (and profitable). Trends define the ‘what’ and forecasting provides the ‘how’… but social forces help us to understand the ‘why.’