Solutions / Research & Intelligence / Competitive Intelligence
Competitive Intelligence
Competitor press releases describe decisions made months earlier. Hiring patterns, patent filings, channel behaviour and pricing moves describe decisions being made now.
Read behaviour, not press releasesHiring, patents, capacity and channel moves show decisions months before they are announced.
Understand why you loseStructured interviews with won and lost accounts, which routinely contradict what sales believes.
Model their responseWhat a competitor is likely to do if you move, and the conditions that make each response more likely.
In simple terms
You tell us who you are up against. We track what they are actually doing rather than what they announce, and tell you what they are likely to do next.
What Competitive Intelligence is. Competitive intelligence is the systematic tracking and interpretation of competitor capability, strategy and likely next moves, built from observable behaviour rather than from what companies say about themselves.
What makes this different from a market report. A report is a photograph of a market on the day it was written, and it is written for every company in the industry at once. This work starts from your position and keeps running, so you hear about a change while you can still do something about it.
What the service covers
These are the areas we work across, such as the ones below. We combine them in the proportion your question needs, and we tell you which ones your question does not need.
Competitor profiling
Capability, cost position, go-to-market motion and financial room to manoeuvre, assembled from observable evidence.
Win-loss analysis
Structured interviews with won, lost and no-decision accounts, which routinely contradict what the sales team believes.
Behavioural signal tracking
Hiring, patents, partnerships, capacity and channel changes read as leading indicators of strategy.
Response modelling
Likely competitor reaction to your move, with the conditions that would make each response more or less probable.
Questions this answers
If something like this is on your agenda, the engagement is already half scoped.
- Which competitor is most likely to move into our segment, and when?
- How are they actually winning the deals we lose?
- What does their hiring pattern say about the roadmap they have not announced?
- Where are they structurally weak, and how long does that weakness last?
- If we cut price by eight per cent, what do they do in response?
How you can use this
A few of the situations where this service does real work.
A competitor has moved
They have cut price, launched, or entered your territory and you must respond.
Losing deals you should win
Your win rate against one rival is worse than it should be.
Planning your own move
You want to act without triggering a response you cannot absorb.
Entering a contested market
Incumbents are established and you need their real weak points.
What changes for your business
The practical difference between running on this and running on what you have now, such as the following.
You decide earlier
Acting on a shift before competitors see it in published data is usually the difference between setting terms and accepting them.
You spend where the growth is
Capital, headcount and budget go to the segments with real headroom rather than the ones that grew last time.
You reduce the cost of being wrong
Market and product bets get tested against evidence before the money is committed, not after.
Your internal debates get shorter
When everyone works from one sourced set of numbers, meetings move from arguing about the market to deciding what to do.
Your board papers hold up
Independent analysis with traceable sources survives the question internal estimates usually do not: where did this number come from?
Your team stops rebuilding the same analysis
The model and evidence base are yours to reuse, so the next question starts from something rather than nothing.
Who this is for
Roles that commission this work most often include those below. Each asks a different question and gets a different cut of the same evidence.
Strategy and corporate development
Should we commit to this market, and what does being wrong cost?
Sized opportunity by segment, likely competitive response, and the conditions that would make you walk away.
Product and engineering leadership
Will this direction still be right when we launch?
Demand direction by segment, cost and capability trajectory, and the choices that are hard to reverse.
Sales and commercial leadership
Where should my team be spending its time?
Demand by territory and segment, realistic price bands, and where addressable market is growing fastest.
Investors and boards
Does the market evidence support this plan?
Independent validation or challenge of the growth case, plus early warning when a market starts to move.
In-house research and insight teams
We need depth in an area we do not cover.
Specialist capacity that works to your standards and hands over the model and sources, not a closed report.
Typical clients
How we work
The third step is the one that makes the output usable, and it is the one most work of this kind skips.
Understand the decision
We start with the choice you are making, not the topic you named. Sizing a market and approving an investment need different work.
Gather and test the evidence
Industry data, filings, trade flows, regulation and interviews with people who operate in the market. Every figure is checked against a second independent source.
Read it for your position
The same market change can help one part of a value chain and hurt another. We establish where you sit first, then interpret everything through that.
Give you the decision
A recommendation, how confident we are, and what would change our view. Then the full data, so your team can audit or rerun any part of it.
What you receive
Decision memosix to ten pages, written for the executive who signs
Full analytical report with sizingsegmentation and structure
Model workbook in Excelunlocked, assumptions traceable to source
Evidence appendix with source register and interview log
Access to Phi, our AI research platformincluded
Every engagement comes with access to Phi. Ask questions of your own findings in plain language, pull the evidence behind any number, and keep querying long after the work is delivered. Your team gets the working intelligence, not just the document.
Open PhiWays to start
Tell us the decision and the date it has to be made by. We will recommend the smallest engagement that gets you there.
Signal briefing
A focused read on one question, structured to commission without a procurement cycle.
Intelligence study
Full analysis of one market, technology or competitive set.
Intelligence programme
Continuous coverage, quarterly refresh and standing analyst access.
Common questions
Is this ethical and legal?
Entirely. We work from public and legitimately obtained sources and disclose who we are in primary research. We do not misrepresent identity or solicit confidential information.
How current can this be?
Behavioural signals refresh continuously. Deep profiles are typically refreshed quarterly, or on a trigger such as a funding round or executive change.
Who owns the work?
You do. It is exclusive to you, it is not resold, and working files are handed over unlocked.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes, before the first conversation if you prefer.
Tell us the decision you are facing
Send us the question, the context and your timeline. You get back a recommended first step, what evidence it needs, and what it costs. Not a capability deck.