What’s the Difference Between Tactical Intelligence and Strategic Competitive Intelligence?

As any competitive intelligence researcher knows, it’s crucial to understand both the strategy and tactics to use when conducting company and industry research. However, in today’s ever-evolving business landscape, more than just competitive intelligence professionals employ tools for company and industry research. No matter your role in your organization, if you’re tasked with providing detailed information or research about a company or potential competitor, you’ll need to know how to leverage both tactical intelligence and strategic competitive intelligence.

So, how does tactical competitive intelligence (CI) vary from strategic? Tactical and strategic intelligence are both vital components of business intelligence, but they differ in scope, focus, and the types of decisions they support.

We'll dive into the differences between tactical and strategic competitive intelligence and why both types of research are critical to your CI success (and we'll show you how the new Nexis+ AI^TM makes it easier!). 

What is tactical competitive intelligence? 

As the name suggests, tactical competitive intelligence is intended to inform the day-to-day tactics an organization undertakes to capture market share or increase revenue. This short-term perspective is particularly useful for supporting the sales process.

The focus of competitive intelligence for tactical insights can involve research into both competitors and the broader marketplace. For example, you can research:

• Buying trends within your industry or among target audiences
• Competitor product offerings, including price and how products are being promoted
• Geographic reach for competitor products

MORE: How to conduct deeper market and competitive intelligence research

Real-world applications of tactical competitive intelligence strategies

How does this apply in the real world? For one example, airlines conduct ongoing tactical competitive intelligence research to inform pricing, and fares are adjusted frequently—even daily—based on competitors’ current tactics. This has become especially relevant over the past few years as airlines have dealt with mechanical failures, discrimination claims, and other scandals. As one airline experiences a major misstep, other airlines adjust their prices to capitalize on potential sales from customers anxious to get home. This type of planning requires a constant ear to the ground and knowledge of the current landscape. 

Tactical competitive intelligence like this can also be used to support win/loss analysis which is crucial for developing ‘battle cards’ to drive sales. In this case, CI research should span internal and external sources of data from deals that have been won or lost to cover the following areas:

• Develop side-by-side product or service comparisons from opposition research
• Analyze differences between marketing for similar products or services
• Conduct post-deal interviews (win or lose) to get first-hand feedback on deciding factors and the sales process

In addition, CI professionals should look at both individual deals and aggregate sales results. Analyzing individual sales wins or losses helps companies understand the dynamics of a deal and home in on specific tactics that can resolve barriers to sales. Analyzing the cumulative sales data, on the other hand, helps companies identify trends or common factors across sales wins or losses. These insights empower companies to optimize their messaging and sales tactics to close more deals.

MORE: Best practices for purchasing competitive intelligence tools and services

What is strategic competitive intelligence?  

Where tactical competitive intelligence is designed to help companies make smarter decisions in the moment, strategic competitive intelligence focuses on capturing a long-range review of the business landscape to inform plans across the business for research and development.

In the airline example above, a major airline may set day-to-day prices based on tactical strategies and knowledge of the current competitive landscape. But, if they want to grow their market share over time, they will need a longer strategic lens to consider patterns and possible ways to disrupt the airline industry at large. This requires a historical understanding, as well as a knowledge of innovative technologies, to make long-range strategic decisions. Sometimes this can be much more difficult to find. 

Here are some ways CI professionals discover actionable strategic insights:

• Track news and social commentary related to your own business, direct competitors, potential disruptors, influencers, the marketplace, and industry
• Research competitor organizations and leadership using company and executive data
• Understand the corporate ownership structure
• Analyze patents data to provide a window into technology trends and competitor R&D activity
• Review legal information, including cases within your industry and among competitors, to identify potential opportunities
• Uncover the latest financial reports or regulatory filings related to your competitors or others in the industry you may not have yet discovered

It’s critical to remember that strategic competitive intelligence doesn’t exist to cement plans but to support agility so companies can adapt long-range strategies as needs change. 

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How Nexis+ AI^TM can support your tactical and strategic competitive intelligence needs

To achieve comprehensive and credible tactical and strategic competitive intelligence, consider Nexis+ AI. Our decision intelligence platform leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize company research, providing access to vast data sets, streamlining your research process, and enhancing data output and organization within seconds.

Nexis+ AI enables rapid insight extraction from news and lengthy documents, while efficiently organizing your saved intelligence discoveries into cloud-stored collections. Saving intelligence insights with Nexis+ AI allows you to store research snippets along with source information in seconds, so you can keep on top of multiple projects without having to fret over remembering where you found that one golden nugget of intel.

Plus, the Nexis+ AI data pool contains financial data and news on more than a million companies, enabling you to view the latest company reports, media, and filings from a single screen. Nexis+ AI streamlines your workflow, enabling you to organize, analyze, and share your findings within a single data workspace.

Learn how you can accelerate your competitive intelligence gathering with Nexis+ AI and request a demo today.