Competitive Intelligence Checklist

How Good is Your Company’s Competitive Analysis? (Strategy Self-Analysis)

“Therefore I say, ‘Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.'” – [Genkhan] Sun Tzu

Below is a set of questions that will allow you to assess your company’s capability to gather and act on competitive intelligence. The source of the questions is Sun Tzu and the Art of Business: Six Strategic Principles for Managers by Mark McNeilly (Oxford University Press, 1996)

Please select “Yes” or “No” to these questions about your company;

1. We have a formal intelligence-gathering and analysis process
2. We have a good understanding of our competitions’ offerings and how they bring them to market
3. We know how well our competitors are doing financially, their business model, revenue sources and cost structure
4. We have a good understanding of the capabilities of the competitors—what they can and can’t do
5. We know the goals of our competitors and which markets are most important to them
6. We know the strategy and plans of our competitors in detail
7. We know the mindset of the CEOs and key executives of our top competitors-how they view the industry, the degree of risk they are willing to take, the priority of their business goals and their individual ambitions.
8. We know how our top competitors will respond in key situations, based on knowing their mindset and how they’ve reacted in the past.
9. We regularly war-game our strategies vs. our competition; role-playing different scenarios that may occur so we can adjust our strategy & tactics
10. Competitive intelligence and analysis significantly influences the direction of our strategy and plans
11. Executive support for competitive intelligence is increasing in my firm