Competitive Intelligence and Market Research Glossary

A broad definition of competitive intelligence is the action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing Intelligence about products, customers, competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization.

Competitive positioning is about defining how you’ll “differentiate” your service or offering and create value for your market.  It’s about finding a unique spot in the competitive landscape and focusing your company to execute on that strategy. Key strategy points includes

Customer segments: groups of customers with similar wants & needs
Competitive analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the landscape

Competitor analysis in marketing and strategic management is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. This analysis provides both an offensive and defensive strategic context through which to identify opportunities and threats. Competitor profiling coalesces all of the relevant sources of competitor analysis into one framework in the support of efficient and effective strategy formulation, implementation, monitoring and adjustment.