Competitive Intelligence Excellence: Best Practices for Gathering Data and Building a Strong CI Function

STUDY OVERVIEW

In a hyper-competitive global market, strong Competitive Intelligence (CI) can provide companies with actionable strategic and tactical insights. Organizations with superior CI capabilities are able to anticipate competitive threats and, when they arise, seize precious business opportunities.

But the challenge of building a best-in-class CI function is considerable. In essence, the task of CI leaders is twofold. First, they must obtain thorough, relevant information from a daunting number of primary and secondary sources and third-party vendors. Second, they must absorb all of this information in light of their own company's needs in order to translate competitive knowledge into functional intelligence.

This study examines how CI teams at top pharmaceutical companies collect data, where they obtain data from and how they transform their competitive information base into a consistently effective and actionable intelligence resource.

CI leaders can use the industry benchmarks and executive narratives from this research to determine the optimal mix of secondary, primary and outsourced research; to compare their own sources to those of other top companies; and to develop and sustain the long-term success of their own CI functions.

NOTE: The data in this research are segmented into two parts: a Large Pharma and Small Pharma Segment.

KEY TOPICS

• Critical Sources of Secondary Information
• Critical Sources of Primary Information
• Data Collection Practices
• Innovative Secondary Research
• Innovative Primary Research
• Use of Third-Party Vendors in Primary Research
• Setting Appropriate Expectations
• Building Credibility Internally
• Rapid Response Programs

• Most Effective Secondary & Primary Research Sources: Small Pharma Segment
• Most Effective Secondary & Primary Research Sources: Large Pharma Segment
• Preferred Primary Data Sources
• Levels of Outsourcing: Primary Research
• Effective Internal Sources: Primary Research
• Rapid Response Preparedness

Multiple Sources are Vital to Effective CI: Triangulate from multiple data sources to develop the most accurate projections. Integrate primary data with your existing knowledge base.

People, Processes and Use of Third-Party Vendors are Keys to Optimizing Data Collection: Talk with employees across functions inside your company to uncover information gaps.

CI Executives Advise Emerging CI Functions to Evolve: Establish an information strategy first, then an intelligence strategy. Concentrate on building a network of information sources rather than just answering requests to fetch data.

METHODOLOGY

Best Practices, LLC employed a two-pronged approach to this research: 24 competitive intelligence leaders at 23 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies participated in a detailed benchmarking survey. Selected respondents from eight of these companies also participated in deep dive interviews. The surveys collected quantitative data, while the in-depth follow-up interviews captured executive insights, process descriptions and best practices.

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