We are standing up a new competitive intelligence function at my current company. What do you consider must-haves?

A good competitive intelligence function starts with great listening. Engaging your frontline (both sales AND customer success...why you are losing deals is good insight, but why you are losing customers is incredibly powerful), win/loss reports, gleaning insights from your customer experience and brand tracking programs, dark funnel data, first party research when possible....

Establishing listening upfront will help you then get a clearer picture of where you need to focus. Which competitors in which segments should you focus on, where / how are they winning. This is where layering in some 1st party research can be helpful. And then being really clear about which deliverables and training will be most helpful to your stakeholders (e.g. Sales) - and getting into a motion where you build those out and socialize (e.g FUD respose docs, trap setting, strong differentiated messaging backed by product truths, etc)

Another key part of the function should be around competitive alerts and wallows. Having a structure where you can deep dive quickly into a competitive move (e.g. acquisition, new announcement, etc.) and get out a perspective and guidance to your front lines so they know how to react if a customer brings it up. This is often a big pain point in a highly competitive industry, so may be a good place to focus first.

First off, congrats! The positive impact that can have on revenue and growth is pretty remarkable. When standing up a new function, I always think broadly to start. For example, when considering “competitors”—think beyond your direct competitors so you can cover a more robust scope. A company in a parallel industry can be just as helpful a case study as one in the same industry. At OkCupid, we’re often looking to social media and self-improvement apps for inspiration.

Analysis will also be key. Be sure to have the tools in place so that analysis will be accessible for all stakeholders. Transparency is so important when analyzing data. And on that note, make sure everyone’s aligned on the function’s KPIs from the start; plan a weekly email or sync to review updates and unforeseen issues.

Finally, it’ll be important for the function to be closely aligned with the product and marketing teams. These teams will help bring the learnings to life. Let them know about the analysis you’re most excited about so they can add any pieces that may be helpful for their teams in creating new features.

We recently stood up our CI function at SurveyMonkey a couple years ago. Before then, competitive intel responsibilities were previously scattered and shared across the product marketing team. CI as a dedicated role is still growing, so you may find it challenging to find someone with a CI background. Our current CI lead had an education & product marketing background, and is FABULOUS in the role :)

When hiring someone to stand up CI, these were the must-haves we looked for:

• Research experience (of any kind). This person will need to do a LOT of research: secondary research, website searching, interviews, surveys, etc.

• Strategic positioning: This person will need to be able to distill the top reasons why someone would choose your product over your competitors'.

• Clear communication. This person will need to communicate clearly & concisely with sales, product, executives, etc.

• Project management: There is a lot to take on when you're establishing a function. The person in this role will need to know how to effectively prioritize & manage their work, some of which is cross-functional in nature.

• Vendor management: This person may need to work with competitive platforms, vendors for competitive research, etc.

Initial programs this person ran:

• Competitive positioning & messaging

  • Competitive battle cards for sales + competitive enablement

  • Competitive landing pages for organic search

• Win/Loss analysis

• Competitive product research to support feature prioritization & development

• Competitive monitoring & alerts on top competitive moves

When standing up a new competitive intelligence function at a company, some things you'd want to consider are:

• Accurate data: Is your field team accurately documenting the competition in each deal? Comb through your CRM and look at recent wins/losses. Who are the top 5-10 competitors you see most often?

• Communicate with sales: Whether or not you have the data in the CRM, it's important to get some time with each member of your field to see who they think the top 3 competitors are. Who do they see most often? The answers will likely vary. For example, the top competitors for your field team covering NA might be completely different from your field team in EMEA. They could also vary for teams responsible for net new customers vs expand/renewal. Learn who your field is worried about and ask them how you compare (strengths and weaknesses).

• Conduct win/loss reviews: Let your market weigh in. Why did a prospect pick you over a competitor? Why did you miss out on a deal? Sometimes, it's price, and sometimes, it's a feature gap you can take to your product team. Sometimes, a feature gap doesn't align with your product direction. And sometimes, it just wasn't an overall fit for you or the prospect.

• Rank your Competitors: As much as your field team may ask, you can't have a robust competitive breakdown for every competitor in your market. It isn't scalable, and it truly isn't needed. Based on the data from your CRM, from your sales team, and from your market. Start ranking the competition. Bucket your top tier (these are the top 3-5 competitors you see most often), second tier (those you sometimes see), and third tier (you know they exist, but you never encounter them, or they are in an adjacent category but not a true competitor.)

• Start sleuthing: Now that you have a general understanding of your main competitors, your secondary competitors, and your 3rd tiers, you can start searching for information around the internet. I recommend you do this without a competitive tool (like Klue) for the first few times you do it. There's a ton of value in Klue, but the first few times you collect information, it should be a learning experience for you. Collect as much data as possible. Organize it yourself and document your sources; you'll want to return to these regularly.

• Setup automation: Create Google alerts, set up a Feedly account, and create a visual ping for your main competitors to track what they are doing, what's changing in their messaging, on their website, and in their documentation (if available), and more.

Now that you have the baseline information gathered, it's time to take action on the information you have.

• Create battle cards for the top-tier competitors. Keep them simple but informative. Set a cadence for reviewing and updating them.

• Conduct Enablement: Spend some time enabling the field to compete against the main competitors (and where to find and how to use the battle cards). You'll want to repeat the enablement sessions often so it stays fresh.

• Create a competitive channel in Teams or Slack. This will allow your field to ask questions or share any new information they've found.

• Measure Success: Take a look at your win-loss reports. Are you winning more against your main competitors than you previously were? Are you starting to see 2nd or 3rd tier competitors climb the ranks? Run a survey to get your field team's confidence level when selling against the competitors.

• Adapt.

Competitive intelligence is a lot of work; I've known PMMs that focus only on competition. If you don't have a comp intel team (or person), then consider implementing a tool to help you.