Competitive Intelligence (CI) gives sales teams critical information surrounding competitors, markets, and customers, which are all key factors when making strategic decisions.

AI-enabled CI tools optimize this process by gathering information, processing it, and distributing it to relevant sales and marketing teams for enhanced decision-making.

If done right, CI tools will empower sales and business development teams to:

• Get a better understanding of their targeted customers
• Improve lead conversion rates and make informed decisions faster
• Strengthen communication between sales, marketing, and product teams
• Reduce confusion surrounding messaging and execution

Make Intelligence Easy to Use through Distribution

Teams who regularly use CI throughout the week see significantly more outcomes and impact during their campaigns.

One of the biggest barriers teams experience when using intelligence has been usability. When intelligence is difficult to access and confusing, teams are less likely to use it.

A great way to counter this is by adjusting the way users distribute intelligence. For example:

• Sales teams want access to information that will help them handle specific issues such as objections and emails.
• Business development teams want intelligence that pinpoints specific buying triggers
• Product teams want tools that will enable them to communicate (i.e., teams, Zoom, Skype)
• Insights teams want to interact with the data (i.e., Tableau, PowerBI) or decks that take a deep dive into the intelligence and are executive presentation ready.
• Product teams want intelligence that has gone through a SWOT analysis for better insights.

High-performing teams are leveraging a one-stop-shop platform to curate and store their intelligence.

Different teams can access the platform and get curated intelligence that fits their distribution style without having to sift through data and search for it themselves.

Empower Teams to Act on Intelligence

Reliable competitive intelligence ensure that sales and business development teams will be successful throughout various stages of the deal lifecycle.

Competitive intelligence unveils competitors’ vulnerabilities that sales and business development teams can use to their advantage when building relationships.

A reliable CI tool should empower teams to:

• Uncover competitors’ strengths and weaknesses
• Help build and support business objectives
• Prepare users for demos and meetings

The Ultimate Guide to a Turbocharged Competitive Intelligence Platform

Continuously Track Sales and Business Development Teams’ Success 

Business development and sales teams tend to develop tunnel vision during the deal process. Focusing on wins and successes can feel great. Amazing even.

But teams are losing out on more wins by not looking at both their wins and losses.

Performing a win-loss analysis helps teams identify gaps in their strategies and highlight areas they improve.

Vital nuggets of information a strong win-analysis needs are found in customer feedback, notes from team members, and a steady eye on data.

Teams need a CI tool that keeps an eye on their success through:

• Relevant and timely insights
• Continuous monitoring
• Quick overviews providing context

Encourage Adoption of Competitive Intelligence

Humans are creatures of habit.

This can be seen as a barrier when getting people to adopt a new process but is then transformed into a strength once that process has become established.

Having to adapt to a new tool or technique can be stressful, difficult, and even frustrating for any kind of team.

Creating a judgment-free feedback loop encourages teams to get used to a new tool, find what they like or don’t like about it, and see if it is creating value.

To learn how competitive intelligence can empower your teams, speak with an expert here.