Ellie Mirman

I take the approach of getting both quantitative and qualitative measures, both bottom line (e.g. revenue) and project-specific (e.g. collateral usage) metrics. Quantitative metrics include: revenue, win/loss rates, launch metrics, product usage, retention Qualitative metrics include: internal feedback (e.g. sales team surveys), external feedback (e.g. brand awareness surveys)

Here are some initial thoughts based on my experience building a CI program at previous companies, as well as what I've learned from our customers. * Start with the goals you want to accomplish with this new program - why does the business need this now? This can really help with focusing early efforts and making small but measured steps towards an impactful program. * Include a healthy mix of proactive, self-serve, and custom services. The proactive component is the "push" side of the CI program - proactively sharing news, analyses, etc. with relevant audiences. Self-serve = what others have described in terms of having a central place where updated competitive overviews and other materials can be found. Custom = make it known that other teams like sales and product can come to you to ask a question, such as "how do we stack up against Competitor A in the Education vertical?" * Take a holistic approach to your CI efforts - capturing key moves and analyzing the impact across every area of the business. So many CI programs focus on major news for sales enablement but miss the deep dive product intel in support articles or customer reviews, the strategic intel in job postings and employee feedback, the positioning intel in landing page or product page changes, and so much more. CI can and should inform everyone from sales to marketing to product to the executive leadership team, and I think the focus of intel programs often holds teams back from having that type of impact.

Agreed with the other answers about aligning impact with focus areas for the business as a whole. Though I also like to have some consistent metrics to be able to see some longer term trends. There's a separate thread here that dives into PMM metrics: https://sharebird.com/are-there-any-broad-metrics-you-guys-track-as-pmms Some good points there about the combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics, and even quantifying some of that qualitative feedback.

1. Automate as much of the research / data collection as possible. Honestly, this should be "outsourced" to technology because it can do a better job at a fraction of the cost (think of your time) and time (enabling real-time analysis and action). 2. Prioritize what you find. Not everything will be critical, so take a tiered approach - by groups of competitors (tier 1, tier 2, indirect competitors, emerging competitors) and by type of update (acquisition vs. new ebook). This will keep you sane and make the CI more digestible to the various internal stakeholders consuming it. 3. Set goals and get agreement beforehand. Figure out what you want to capture, what you want to impact internally, which competitors you care about most, etc. Get agreement internally so that everyone who cares about competitors are on the same page.

I prefer to have a two-person team to do interviews - one person to conduct the interview, the other to take in-depth notes and identify follow up questions. This can be less critical if it's possible to record the interview, but I find that the written notes are fantastic for sharing the takeaways with others afterwards. I found this post pretty thorough in terms of a process, questions, etc: https://labs.openviewpartners.com/how-to-conduct-win-loss-analysis/#.W2OIs9hKjVq Oftentimes, "win / loss analysis" gets equated with prospect interviews but it's just as important to measure the overall trends - both for tracking changes over time but also for identifying areas you want to dig into during the interview process. For example, you may see that a common loss reason is "budget", so you can dive into budget questions in your interviews with both won and lost opportunities.