How do you convey that competitive intelligence is a team effort, requiring input from all business areas, especially customer-facing teams?

Customer-facing teams are important CI efforts because they give real-time, on-the-ground feedback and insights. They’re talking to customers daily, so they have a firsthand look at what’s working, what’s not, and how competitors are stacking up. This kind of direct insight helps us understand market trends and customer needs better. Here’s why this matters: Real-Time Feedback: They give us the latest intel on what customers are saying and what competitors are doing, so we can make better decisi ...Read More

Most Competitive Intel functions begin as siloed efforts within organizations. Product, Sales, Marketing, executives... they're all interested in competitors and conduct their own research for different purposes—with or without a formal CI program. But by implementing a formal CI program, the research goes deeper on the things that matter most, and wider across the company so that everyone can access it.  But on its own, CI is just one person grasping at what they think is important for an entir ...Read More

Let's be clear. CI is a team effort and its very hard to be THE end-all-be-all source for this information. While that can work for a time, a small team cannot be everywhere at all times, so communicating that to the rest of the organization is paramount. There are two tactics I suggest using. Tie your efforts to Revenue (yes this is a common theme with me :) ): You must clearly articulate how competitive intelligence contributes to winning deals and ties directly to company-level revenue number ...Read More

Really important question - competitive intelligence is more likely to be utilized if other functions are helping to source it and are brought in early in the process. A few tips to ensure it's seen as a team effort: Establish a cross-functional team: Include representatives from sales, rev ops, sales enablement, PMM, marketing, product, customer success, and other relevant functions. Define clear roles & responsibilities. As an example, Rev Ops could handle win/loss reporting, product could ...Read More

This is a great point! Competitive intelligence is definitely a team sport and should not be solely produced by Product Marketing! I always try to reinforce that Product Marketing's intelligence is only as good as what we are given. Oftentimes, sales or customer-facing teams hear about new things quicker than PMM can. So at all training interactions with those customer-facing teams I always close with a "help us help you" message asking for their help with gathering intel. If you say it consiste ...Read More

The "effectively convey" language makes me think that sharing competitive intelligence is not part of your company's culture. That's too bad - the best way to make it clear that CI is everyone's job is for leadership to be the one setting the priority. Here are some more grassroots strategies. Direct outreach to some key sellers. Not necessarily management, but the over-performers whom other sellers want to emulate. Come with some research and hypotheses and ask their opinions. Direct outreach t ...Read More

This is an ongoing effort, and I recommend that you take the initiative rather than waiting for another team to lead this. Talk with leaders and get their buy-in and then set up recurring meetings with different stakeholders on the Sales, Customer Success and other similar teams, and come prepared with questions that spark brainstorming. Share the goals in advance so that stakeholders can come prepared with notes they might have on the different subjects and so forth. Additionally, I recommend i ...Read More