Tag: Go To Market

Over the past several years, intelligence-gathering advancements have become more accessible and complex. The driving factor behind this duality is the overwhelming data available today. While data is abundant, the challenge lies in effectively aggregating and synthesizing it into actionable insights. Go-to-market (GTM) teams can no longer rely solely on analyst research like a “magic quadrant” to understand evolving markets. Real-time intelligence is essential. Equally important is integrating internal knowledge from sales teams with external news and market trends. Achieving this balance requires discipline and a digital transformation vehicle that enables teams to seamlessly combine art with science in their approach to competitor intelligence.

In the rapidly evolving procurement and supply chain space, competitor intelligence (CI) is no longer a luxury—it’s essential for staying ahead. The industry boasts many providers, all vying for differentiation in a market shaped by technology and shifting global trends. But there’s a common challenge: too often, competitor knowledge resides in the minds of a few, limiting its impact and stifling strategic alignment.

To overcome this, procurement and supply chain providers must digitize and democratize CI, ensuring insights are shared across the “perfect triad” of product, sales, and marketing. The traditional model of relying on tribal knowledge no longer serves the fast-paced demands of this competitive space, and emerging solutions are reshaping how intelligence is gathered, analyzed, and deployed.

Why Competitor Intelligence is Crucial for Procurement and Supply Chain Providers

The procurement and supply chain sectors are highly dynamic, with hundreds of providers offering similar services, from contract lifecycle management to predictive supply chain planning. Competition is fierce, and staying relevant means understanding how your product stack compares to others, what messaging resonates in different regions, and how you can strategically position your offerings.

Moreover, as procurement and supply chain providers navigate global economic uncertainties—such as inflation, deglobalization, and increasing regulatory frameworks—having a pulse on your competitors’ strategies can guide go-to-market efforts and product roadmaps.

Yet, despite its importance, CI in this space often remains siloed. Product teams may develop deep technical knowledge of competitors’ offerings but fail to share these insights with sales. Marketing might focus on messaging but lack a clear picture of competitive pricing or critical differentiators. This fragmentation weakens overall strategic coherence and limits the ability to pivot or capitalize on market shifts swiftly. Even when competitive efforts are taken, they often result in dated documents stored in share point folders that will likely not reflect the current state of the market.

The Need to Shift from Tribal Knowledge to Shared Insights

Many companies still rely on “tribal knowledge”—the informal, unwritten insights circulating within certain groups but never making it to the broader team. While valuable, this method of information sharing has severe limitations:

1. Loss of knowledge when key team members leave or move to different roles.
2. Inefficient access for sales and marketing, who need up-to-date insights to craft effective messaging or close deals.
3. Inconsistent updates, as those with the knowledge, may not actively seek new information or only share updates sporadically that get lost in files across the organization.

Digitizing CI breaks these barriers, providing a centralized, easily accessible source of competitive insights. This shift ensures that critical information isn’t lost when team members leave or new hires come on board. It also streamlines collaboration between product, sales, and marketing teams, allowing them to work from the same playbook regarding competitive positioning and strategy.

Evolving Solutions in Competitor Intelligence – two examples: Crayon and Klue

While there are several digital solutions in the market, two leading platforms I’ve personally implemented are Crayon and Klue. Both are at the forefront of digitizing CI and offer robust solutions that allow companies to move away from tribal knowledge and toward a more systematic approach to competitive analysis.

They offer AI-driven data aggregation, enabling teams to track competitor trends, monitor product updates, and analyze market shifts. In a fast-moving space like procurement and supply chain management, having these real-time insights is crucial to maintaining an edge over competitors.

• Crayon: This platform aggregates competitive intelligence from a wide range of sources—product updates, news, social media, and more—and presents it in a way that is easily accessible and actionable for all teams. Its real-time dashboards provide constantly updated insights, ensuring sales and marketing can adjust strategies quickly.
• Klue: Klue takes a similar approach but strongly emphasizes creating shareable, bite-sized competitive insights for sales teams. Its integration with CRM systems like Salesforce allows sales reps to access competitor battle cards within the tools they already use, leading to faster decision-making and more competitive deals.
  

The Role of Product, Sales, and Marketing in Leveraging CI

To fully capitalize on the digitization of CI, procurement, and supply chain providers must ensure that the insights gathered are shared seamlessly across product, sales, and marketing:

• Product Teams: By understanding how competitors are innovating, product teams can refine their roadmaps, identifying areas where they can leapfrog the competition or pivot to meet emerging demands.
• Sales Teams: Sales professionals need quick, digestible insights on competitor pricing, features, and positioning to close deals. With CI digitized, they can use battle cards, real-time alerts, and other tools to respond swiftly to competitive pressures.
• Marketing Teams: Marketing needs to be in sync with sales, ensuring that campaigns and messaging reflect the latest competitive landscape. Whether tweaking ad copy or developing new case studies, having up-to-date CI ensures your marketing efforts hit the mark.

 

The procurement and supply chain space is growing more competitive, with many providers vying for market share. Staying ahead in this environment requires moving away from the outdated reliance on tribal knowledge and toward a more structured, digitized approach to competitor intelligence.

Digital competitive intelligence solutions like Crayon and Klue offer procurement and supply chain providers the tools to collect, analyze, and share CI across teams, ensuring that product, sales, and marketing work together toward a unified strategy. For companies looking to stay ahead, the time to digitize competitor intelligence is now. In this race, the companies that best understand their competitors will be the ones that lead. _______________________________________ Ready to transform how your organization leverages competitor intelligence? At Liberis Consulting, we specialize in helping procurement and supply chain providers digitize their intelligence processes, empowering product, sales, and marketing teams to make smarter, faster decisions. Don’t let critical insights stay locked in silos—let’s work together to turn data into actionable strategies that drive growth. Let’s connect to start building a more agile, informed, and competitive future!

Over the past several years, the competitive intelligence landscape has significantly transformed, presenting new challenges and opportunities for organizations. The increased available data has been exponential, creating a wealth of information for companies to leverage in their strategic decision-making processes. However, the real challenge lies in effectively managing this abundance of data within the intricate web of people and processes that comprise the Go-To-Market (GTM) organization.

One key issue organizations face is the need to sift through vast information to extract valuable insights to inform their competitive strategies. This process requires advanced technological tools and skilled professionals who interpret and translate the data into actionable intelligence.

Moreover, the competitive landscape constantly evolves, with new players, existing competitors changing strategies, and industry dynamics shifting rapidly. This dynamic environment adds another layer of complexity to collecting and analyzing competitive intelligence.

In my experience, I have observed several common challenges that organizations encounter when gathering competitive intelligence effectively. These challenges are related to a combination of data quality, data integration, stakeholder alignment, and resource constraints, including some of the following:

• Competitive information often remains as “tribal knowledge” stored in a SharePoint folder or, even worse, on someone’s hard drive.
• Battle cards are typically created in Excel, Word, or PowerPoint but quickly become static if not regularly updated.
• Even when efforts are made within CRM tools like Salesforce to gather competitor information during deals, there is a lack of discipline in keeping this information updated as the system of record.
• There is no dedicated core process for managing competitive intelligence that integrates with the broader customer lifecycle.
• International markets pose challenges due to language barriers, cultural differences, and varying regional differences among competitors in those markets.
• When colleagues leave the company, they retain unique knowledge and experiences about past deals (wins/losses), which are not shared or incorporated into broader competitive intelligence efforts.

 

Successfully implementing a competitive intelligence program involves gathering, analyzing, and utilizing information about competitors, market trends, and industry dynamics to make informed strategic decisions. In my experience, the primary challenge noted above is determining who owns the process. In many organizations, CI responsibilities are scattered across various departments such as Sales, Marketing, Product Management, and IT.

This fragmented approach leads to inconsistencies, duplicated efforts, and gaps in intelligence. For instance, Sales teams may gather valuable competitive insights during client interactions. Still, these insights might not reach the Product Development team, which could benefit from understanding competitors’ product features and strategies.

To overcome these ownership disputes, CI efforts need to be centralized. Centralization ensures that CI activities are coordinated, comprehensive, and aligned with the organization’s strategic goals. A centralized CI function can consolidate information from diverse sources, standardize analysis methods, and provide decision-makers with a single source of truth.

Why Should Product Marketing Manage CI?

Product Marketing is uniquely positioned to manage CI for several reasons:

1. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Product Marketing naturally interacts with various departments, including Sales, Product Development, and Executive Leadership. This cross-functional collaboration is essential for gathering comprehensive intelligence and ensuring that insights are shared across the organization.
2. Market and Competitor Focus: Product Marketing teams are deeply entrenched in understanding market dynamics, customer needs, and competitive landscapes. Their expertise in market analysis and strategic positioning makes them well-suited to lead CI efforts and translate insights into actionable strategies.
3. Strategic Alignment: Product Marketing is pivotal in aligning product strategy with market demands and competitive pressures. By managing CI, they can ensure that intelligence directly informs product roadmaps, marketing campaigns, and sales strategies, driving a cohesive approach to market competition.
4. Analytical Capabilities: Product Marketing teams often possess strong analytical skills for dissecting complex, competitive data and extracting meaningful insights. These insights are based on data collected from analyst reports, conferences, digital marketing campaigns, and broader customer personas. Their ability to interpret and present data strategically ensures that CI outputs are informative and actionable across various needs (e.g., sales enablement, marketing campaigns, or product development).

Having worked extensively in the B2B technology sector, I have come to appreciate the pivotal role that practical competitive intelligence plays in shaping business success. The ability to gather, analyze, and act upon competitive insights can be a game-changer for organizations seeking to maintain a competitive edge in the market.

By establishing a centralized CI function within Product Marketing, companies can foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement. This enables them to stay ahead of market trends, anticipate competitor moves, and proactively adjust their strategies to capitalize on emerging opportunities. Ultimately, integrating competitive intelligence into the core functions of the business enhances decision-making and empowers organizations to adapt swiftly to the evolving competitive landscape.

In today’s fast-paced B2B technology landscape, staying ahead of competitors is essential for success. By centralizing competitive intelligence within your Product Marketing team, you can transform scattered insights into actionable strategies that drive business growth. Don’t let valuable information slip through the cracks—make smarter decisions, enhance collaboration, and stay ahead of the market.

Ready to sharpen your competitive strategy? Contact Liberis Consulting and let us help you create a winning approach to competitive intelligence!