Competitive Intelligence Program

Competitive Intelligence Program

Program-management angle on CI: scope, tooling, battle cards, win/loss process, and distribution. For OSINT tradecraft (how to actually gather signals) see skills/research/competitive-intelligence.md.

CI Program Setup

Define Scope

• Primary competitors: head-to-head competition in core segments (2–4 companies)
• Secondary competitors: adjacent or emerging threats (4–8 companies)
• Watch list: early-stage startups, potential entrants (track quarterly)

Signal Sources

Tooling

• Monitoring: Crayon, Klue, Kompyte (or free: Google Alerts, RSS)
• Win/loss: Clozd, Gong, or structured interview template
• Distribution: Notion / Confluence battle card pages; Slack CI channel
• CRM tagging: tag every opportunity with competitor(s) involved

Battle Card Template

# Competitor: [Name]
Last updated: YYYY-MM-DD
Owner: [Product Marketing]

## One-line summary
[How to position against them in one sentence]

## Their strengths (be honest — salespeople will lose trust if you're not)
- [Strength 1]: [Why customers like it]
- [Strength 2]: [Why customers like it]
- [Strength 3]: [Why customers like it]

## Their weaknesses (with evidence)
- [Weakness 1]: [Source — G2 quote, customer feedback, product limitation]
- [Weakness 2]: [Source]
- [Weakness 3]: [Source]

## Why we win
- [Differentiator 1]: [Specific evidence or customer quote]
- [Differentiator 2]: [Specific evidence or customer quote]
- [Differentiator 3]: [Specific evidence or customer quote]

## Why we lose (be honest)
- [Reason 1]: [When we're at a disadvantage]
- [Reason 2]: [When we're at a disadvantage]

## Discovery questions (to expose their weaknesses naturally)
1. "[Question that surfaces pain with competitor]"
2. "[Question that highlights competitor limitation]"
3. "[Question that uncovers unmet need we address]"

## Objection handling
| Their claim | Our response |
|------------|-------------|
| "Competitor X is cheaper" | "[Total cost framing / ROI response]" |
| "Competitor X has feature Y" | "[Our roadmap / our alternative / their limitation]" |
| "Competitor X has more customers" | "[Quality vs. quantity / our segment focus]" |
| "We're already using X" | "[Displacement or coexistence approach]" |

## Trap questions (to plant in their mind)
1. "Ask them how they handle [known weakness]."
2. "Ask to see [feature they don't have or is poor quality]."
3. "Ask for a reference in your industry / use case."

## Proof points (customer wins against this competitor)
- [Customer logo]: switched from [Competitor] because [reason]
- [Customer logo]: chose us over [Competitor] in bakeoff because [reason]

## Pricing comparison (if known)
[Our pricing] vs [Their pricing] — note: verify with recent data

Win/Loss Analysis

Interview Template (30-minute call)

For won deals:

1. What initially prompted you to evaluate solutions in this space?
2. Which vendors did you evaluate? Who made the shortlist?
3. What were the top 3 criteria you used to make your decision?
4. Where did [our product] stand out vs. alternatives?
5. Where did you have concerns about us? How did we address them?
6. What almost made you choose a competitor?
7. Who was your internal champion? Who were the skeptics?

For lost deals:

1. What were the top 3 factors in your decision?
2. Who did you ultimately choose and why?
3. Where did we fall short in the evaluation?
4. What would have changed your decision?
5. How do you expect [competitor] to address [their known weakness]?
6. Would you be open to re-evaluating us if [specific thing] changed?

Win/Loss Metrics

Monitoring Cadence

Weekly CI Digest (internal Slack / email)

[Week of YYYY-MM-DD] Competitive Intel Digest

New this week:
- [Competitor A] launched [feature]: [link] — impact: [Low/Medium/High]
- [Competitor B] raised $Xm Series C: [link] — impact: [Medium]
- [Competitor C] job postings for [ML engineers]: signals [roadmap direction]

Customer sentiment (G2 / reviews):
- [Competitor A] new 1-star reviews mentioning [theme]: opportunity for us
- [Competitor B] response time complaints increasing

Action items:
- Update battle card for [Competitor A] by [date] — owner: [Name]
- Flag [Competitor B] funding to sales team — owner: [Name]

Quarterly Competitive Review Agenda (2 hours)

1. Win rate trends by competitor (30 min)
2. Battle card accuracy review — what's stale? (30 min)
3. Competitor product updates since last quarter (30 min)
4. Emerging competitors / watch list update (15 min)
5. Positioning implications and messaging updates (15 min)

CI Distribution

Audience Segmentation

Battle Card Quality Checklist

• Updated within last 90 days
• Reviewed by at least 2 AEs who compete against this vendor regularly
• Contains customer quotes (not just internal assertions)
• Discovery questions tested in real calls
• Pricing data verified (not from memory)
• Linked from CRM opportunity for easy access during deals