Competitive Intelligence Glossary
Master the language of competitive intelligence. Explore 50 essential terms, concepts, and strategies to stay ahead in your market.
Fundamentals
Core concepts and principles of competitive intelligence
Benchmarking
The systematic process of comparing your organization's performance, processes, or practices against industry leaders or competitors to identify performance gaps and improvement opportunities.
Business Intelligence
The technology-driven process of analyzing business data to help organizations make informed strategic decisions through reporting, analytics, and data visualization tools.
Competitive Advantage
A condition or capability that enables a company to outperform competitors through superior products, services, operational efficiency, or market position that customers value and rivals cannot easily replicate.
Competitive Analysis
A systematic evaluation of your competitors' strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and market positioning to identify opportunities and inform business strategy.
Competitive Intelligence
The systematic process of gathering, analyzing, and applying information about competitors, markets, and the business environment to make strategic decisions.
Competitive Landscape
The complete ecosystem of companies, products, and solutions competing for the same customers or solving similar problems, including direct competitors, indirect alternatives, and potential disruptors.
Market Dynamics
The forces and factors that influence market behavior, including supply and demand, competitive pressures, customer preferences, technological changes, and regulatory shifts.
Market Intelligence
The systematic collection and analysis of information about market trends, customer behavior, and industry dynamics to inform business strategy and decision-making.
Market Segmentation
The process of dividing a broad target market into distinct groups of customers with similar needs, characteristics, or behaviors to enable targeted marketing and product strategies.
Market Trends
Directional movements or patterns in market behavior, customer preferences, technology adoption, or competitive dynamics that indicate how markets are evolving over time.
Porter's Five Forces
A strategic framework developed by Michael Porter that analyzes industry competitiveness and profitability through five key forces: competitive rivalry, threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, and threat of substitutes.
Product Launch
The coordinated process of bringing a new product or major feature to market, including positioning, messaging, go-to-market strategy, and cross-functional execution.
Product-Market Fit
The degree to which a product satisfies strong market demand, evidenced by customers actively seeking, purchasing, and advocating for the product without excessive sales or marketing effort.
SWOT Analysis
A strategic planning framework that examines an organization's internal Strengths and Weaknesses alongside external Opportunities and Threats to inform decision-making.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
The specific factor or benefit that distinguishes a product from competitors and gives customers a compelling reason to choose it over alternatives.
Value Proposition
A clear statement that explains how a product solves customer problems, delivers specific benefits, and why customers should choose it over alternatives.
Tools & Methods
Techniques and technologies for gathering and analyzing competitive data
Brand Monitoring
The systematic tracking and analysis of brand mentions, sentiment, and perception across digital channels to understand how customers, competitors, and the market perceive your brand.
Competitive Audit
A comprehensive, systematic evaluation of competitors' strategies, products, positioning, marketing, and performance to inform competitive strategy and identify opportunities.
Competitor Tracking
The systematic monitoring of competitor activities, strategies, products, and market moves to maintain current competitive intelligence and respond to market changes.
Feature Comparison
A systematic evaluation of product capabilities across competitors, documenting what features each solution offers to inform product strategy, competitive positioning, and sales enablement.
Market Research
The systematic process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting information about markets, customers, competitors, and industry trends to inform business decisions and strategy.
PESTEL Analysis
A strategic framework analyzing macro-environmental factors—Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal—that impact organizations and markets.
Price Monitoring
The systematic tracking and analysis of competitor pricing to inform pricing strategy, detect market movements, and maintain competitive positioning in real-time.
Sales Enablement
The process of providing sales teams with the content, tools, knowledge, and information needed to effectively engage buyers and close deals.
Sentiment Analysis
The computational process of identifying and categorizing opinions expressed in text to determine whether sentiment is positive, negative, or neutral—used to analyze customer feedback, social media, and competitive intelligence.
Social Media Monitoring
The systematic tracking and analysis of social media platforms to gather competitive intelligence, monitor brand mentions, track customer sentiment, and identify market trends.
Thought Leadership
The practice of establishing expertise, credibility, and influence through original insights, perspectives, and ideas that shape industry conversations and position organizations as authorities.
Voice of Customer
The process of capturing and analyzing customer feedback, needs, expectations, and preferences to inform product development, service improvements, and business strategy.
Web Scraping
The automated process of extracting data from websites for analysis, monitoring, or integration with other systems—a key method for gathering competitive intelligence at scale.
Win-Loss Analysis
A systematic process of interviewing customers and prospects after sales outcomes to understand why deals were won or lost, revealing patterns that improve sales effectiveness and competitive positioning.
Metrics & KPIs
Key performance indicators for measuring competitive position
Churn Rate
The percentage of customers who stop using your product or service during a given time period—a critical metric for subscription businesses and customer retention strategies.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The total cost of acquiring a new customer, including marketing, sales, and related expenses—a critical metric for evaluating marketing efficiency and business sustainability.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
The total revenue or profit a customer generates over their entire relationship with your company—a critical metric for evaluating customer profitability and guiding acquisition investments.
Customer Retention
The ability to keep existing customers over time, measured as the percentage of customers who continue using a product or service rather than churning to competitors or discontinuing use.
Growth Rate
The rate at which a company's revenue, customers, or other key metrics increase over time, typically expressed as a percentage change period-over-period.
Market Share
The percentage of total sales or revenue in a specific market captured by a company, product, or brand—a key metric for assessing competitive position and performance.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
A customer loyalty metric that measures how likely customers are to recommend a product or service to others, calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
The total revenue opportunity available for a product or service if 100% market share were achieved in a specific market segment.
Strategies
Strategic frameworks for competitive advantage
Blue Ocean Strategy
A strategic approach that creates new, uncontested market spaces (blue oceans) rather than competing in existing markets (red oceans) through value innovation that makes competition irrelevant.
Competitive Positioning
The strategic process of establishing how your product or brand is perceived relative to competitors, defining the unique space you occupy in the market and customers' minds.
Differentiation Strategy
A competitive strategy focused on creating unique products, services, or experiences that customers value and are willing to pay premium prices for, making the company stand out from competitors.
Disruptive Innovation
An innovation that creates a new market or value network, eventually disrupting established market leaders and displacing existing products, services, or business models.
Go-to-Market Strategy
A comprehensive plan that outlines how a company will reach target customers, deliver its value proposition, and achieve competitive advantage in the market.
Market Entry Strategy
The comprehensive plan for successfully entering a new market, encompassing target selection, entry modes, competitive positioning, and resource allocation to establish market presence.
Market Penetration
The strategy of increasing sales of existing products in existing markets by capturing greater market share from competitors or expanding usage among current customers.
Positioning
The strategic process of defining how a product or brand occupies a distinct and valuable place in the minds of target customers relative to competitors.
Pricing Strategy
The approach a company uses to set prices for its products or services, balancing customer value perception, competitive positioning, costs, and profit objectives.
Strategic Partnerships
Formal collaborations between organizations to achieve mutual strategic objectives, such as market access, technology integration, customer acquisition, or competitive positioning.
Data Sources
Platforms and sources for competitive intelligence data
Earnings Calls
Quarterly conference calls where public companies discuss financial results, business performance, and strategic direction with investors and analysts, providing valuable competitive intelligence.
SEC Filings
Mandatory disclosure documents that public companies file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, providing detailed financial, operational, and strategic information valuable for competitive intelligence.