Using Analytics to Gain Competitive Insight

Using Analytics to Gain Competitive Insight

Posted on 06-03-2016 by Janelle Coates

Last year, Millward Brown, a global brand strategy and advertising organization, predicted a “mind shift in focus from ‘big’ data to streamlined ‘intelligent’ data.” Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially when the volume and velocity of information seems to be increasing exponentially. Identifying the critical competitive intelligence you need amidst all the noise takes time—a commodity that is already in short supply. How can analytics help?

The Value of Broad Content for Competitive Intelligence Pros

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Competitive intelligence isn’t just about your competitors; it’s about all of the factors that can influence your organization’s ability to compete successfully in a cutthroat business world.  How cutthroat? Fifty percent of companies on the Fortune 500 list in 2000 have already fallen off due to mergers, acquisitions or bankruptcies. And they aren’t just losing out to other big players: Small, disruptive innovators are turning established leaders on their heads across industries.

As an information or competitive intelligence professional, you need access to a broad array of content types.

  • Legislative and regulatory materials to understand market constraints, obstacles and identify relationships and influence among people, companies, associations and politics
  • Company and industry intelligence to gain strategic insights into the key drivers of clients and competitors
  • News to identify trends that may be emerging or declining, as well as to capture global, national and local perspectives on key players in the field
  • Executive and biographical intelligence to identify specialties, expertise, relationships and more of key stakeholders, innovators and influencers
  • Legal and public records to capture information—such as legal issues for companies, executives, brands or products—that may not hit the news until it’s too late

And it’s not information that is easily discovered on the open Web; anyone who has searched for this type of information knows that the Internet is like a trip down the rabbit hole—you hop from one source to another, looking for verifiable data from trustworthy sources. It’s a time-consuming process that leaves you with more questions than answers.

Using Technology to Drive Insight

Instead of getting lost in a series of data dead-ends or running up against paywalls, many information and CI pros rely on aggregation services that pull together multiple types of content in one place. But without analytics, you’re still going to spend a lot of time trying to uncover real insight. Built-in analytics tools can help you filter out the noise to focus in on the key competitive insights that can help fuel data-driven decision making across your enterprise.  With analytics, you can ‘look at’ thousands of articles in an instant to see emerging trends sooner. You can generate meaningful—and easy-to-digest—data visualizations for the C-suite. You can benchmark your company’s performance against the marketplace.  In short, you can find the insights you need in less time. Are you taking advantage of the best tools for conducting competitive intelligence research?  Let us know what you’re doing to stay on top of big data!

3 Ways to Apply This Information Now

  1. Read other posts about competitive intelligence on our blog.
  2. Check out our Nexis® Analyzer tour video on YouTube® to see how this powerful tool helps you move from information overload to data-driven insight.
  3. Share this blog on LinkedIn to keep the dialogue going with your colleagues and contacts.

Sponsored by LexisNexis.

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