"If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete."
- Jack Welsh, CEO GE

        Competitive intelligence is the gathering of information about a business’s competitors to make one's own business more competitive.

Competitive intelligence, then, is the kind of market research designed and carried out to find and keep a business’s market share.

Gathering information about the competition and analyzing it is an important part of working through a business plan, but competitive intelligence is just as important to established businesses. New competitors may move into a market; existing competitors may change their practices.

For successful small businesses, competitive intelligence is regular and ongoing. Without it, you won’t be able to make the marketing decisions that will keep or draw customers and/or clients.

What sorts of information might a small business building competitive intelligence gather? Information about a competitor’s products and/or services and the prices they’re charging for them, of course, but also information such as who their suppliers are, what their customer or clients say about them, what their company policies are, what sorts of communications they send out... 

"Competitive Intelligence (CI) is a process - using legal and ethical means - for discovering, developing, and delivering timely, relevant intelligence needed by decision makers wanting to make their organisation more competitive - in the eyes of the customer. It is used for assisting in strategic decisions, such as product development, mergers, acquisitions and alliances, as well as tactical initiatives, such as anticipating and preempting likely moves by customers, competitors, or regulators."

The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) describes CI as "Competitive intelligence (CI) is the process of monitoring the competitive environment. CI enables senior managers in companies of all sizes to make informed decisions about everything from marketing, R&D, and investing tactics to long-term business strategies. Effective CI is a continuous process involving the legal and ethical collection of information, analysis that doesn't avoid unwelcome conclusions, and controlled dissemination of actionable intelligence to decision makers."