The Compelligence Competitive Maturity
Model Overview
You might have asked yourself at one time or another a question such as “Just how well does
my company use competitive information?” Many organizations know the value of being
competitive, and they understand the need to keep up on their competitors. There are lots of
tools and services available that will help companies gather data on their competitors. The
issue often arises, though, that companies often donʼt know what to do with competitive
intelligence once they have it.
Just as there are models for evaluating software maturity (such as the Capability Maturity Model
developed by the Software Engineering Institute in 1984) or manufacturing maturity (such as the
Manufacturing Readiness Level defined by the US Government), there is also a method for
evaluating the competitive maturity within a company. At Compelligence we call this the
“Compelligence Competitive Maturity Model,” and it defines five different levels of maturity within
an organization.
In order to determine the Compelligence Competitive Maturity Level of an organization, one
must look at a variety of different characteristics of a company. The main areas that are
evaluated are the following:
• The competitive culture of an organization: where are the CI activities in a company
driven from and how broadly does a competitive spirit penetrate the company?
• The competitive deliverables: what type of intelligence is produced and are there any
standards for format, content, and production method?
• The sources of competitive information: where does a company get its intelligence from
and how is it processed?
• The competitive systems utilized: what type of technology or processes are used to
collect, manage, distribute, monitor, and evaluate competitive intelligence?
• The level of competitive investment: from a human resource perspective, what formal job
descriptions or functions that are related to CI exist within a company?
• The consumers of CI and itʼs application: who is the audience of the CI material, and how
is it used within a company?
Figure 1 below shows a graphic of what this model looks like, and the escalating levels of
Compelligence Competitive Maturity. A company progresses from the lower left corner (Level 1)
towards the upper right corner (Level 5), by increasing its competitive maturity in the six areas
defined above. As it does so, it also finds that it enjoys an increasing market share and
increasing influence on market factors.
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The Compelligence Competitive Maturity
Model Overview
Figure 1: The Compelligence Competitive Maturity Model
The table below gives a summary of what one might expect to find for each of the 6
evaluation areas at each of the different levels of maturity. By examining a companyʼs
maturity level, areas of improvement can be identified that will help it become more
competitive.
Compelligence
Competitive
Maturity Level
1
Compelligence
Competitive
Maturity Level
2
Compelligence
Competitive
Maturity Level
3
Compelligence
Competitive
Maturity Level
4
Compelligence
Competitive
Maturity Level
5
“Islands” of
competitive info--i.e.
discrete individuals.
CI activities focussed
on deal support or
sales.
Formal CI
organization.
Typically within a
business unit or
centrally organized.
Method for
employees to
provide information
to team
Strategic leadership
for CI. Executive
voice provides
background and
“competitiveness”
permeates through
all different parts of
the company.
Board of Directors
involved in and
driving CI through
the company. Full
closed-circuit system
for providing data to
employes, partners,
distributors, etc. and
formal process for
receiving and
processing data
back.
Random news
articles or anecdotes
spread via e-mail,
blogs, or other uncentralized means
Responses to
competitor
announcements,
individual product
feature comparisons,
win/loss data
Competitor analysis
documents, input
into marketing
campaigns and GoTo-Market plans
Predictive analysis,
threat analysis,
strategic scenarios,
competitive
landscapes, war
gaming.
Input into M&A
activities, strategies
for entering new
markets, and long
term corporate
vision. Build-out of
competitive
ecosystems
Culture
Deliverables
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The Compelligence Competitive Maturity
Model Overview
Sources
Systems
Compelligence
Competitive
Maturity Level
1
Compelligence
Competitive
Maturity Level
2
Compelligence
Competitive
Maturity Level
3
Compelligence
Competitive
Maturity Level
4
Compelligence
Competitive
Maturity Level
5
Mostly public
sources such as
internet or
newspaper; rumors,
anecdotes
Sales history,
discussions with
account teams,
customer interviews
Contracted or
internal research
projects or data
mining projects
Same as levels 1-3
with strong emphasis
on internal analysis
or “processed data.”
Structured feedback
from ecosystems,
customized research
delivered on a
regular basis
No formal systems
or free systems (i.e.
wiki pages, blogs)
Microsoft Office
documents, internal
website, CRM
systems
Competitive
Intelligence
Management
Systems (CIMS),
“Web scraping”
services
Competitive
Intelligence
Management
Systems (CIMS)
Competitive
Intelligence
Management
Systems (CIMS)
None
Minor or full time
“competitive expert”
Full-time CI
organization with
dedicated
management and
budget; multipurpose CI lab
Senior leadership
management
dedicated to CI,
typically Sr. Director
or above.
Board of directors,
corporate advisory
panels.
General information,
ad-hoc use. No
formal process
Focus on sales and
helping to win
specific deals or
providing input into
deal strategy
Intel delivered to
sales, marketing,
and engineering. CI
used to determine
product strategy and
brand preference
Regular reports
delivered to
executive leadership.
CI used to determine
roadmap of
company.
Intel used at all
levels of the
company, including
Board of Directors,
Corporate Strategy,
etc. Used for
making major
investment
strategies or
changes. Fed into
Annual Operating
Plan
Increase general
knowledge of
competitors and
their activities
Affect deal win rate.
Ability to build trends
on wins and losses
Improved
competitive
positioning. Ability to
scale to handle
several competitors
and markets.
Bigger competitive
gap beyond
competitors and
longer competitive
advantage period in
market.
Ability to repeatedly
define and shape
market place, as well
as influence
technology,
standards, and
practices
Investment
Consumers and
Application
Benefits
Once you understand the categorical differences between each level of the Competitive
Maturity Model, it becomes a straight-forward exercise to evaluate your organization
and to identify areas for improvement. By evaluating your company you can identify
areas which provide opportunities to improve.
A rough plan of how to evaluate your company would look something like the following.
Step 1: Identify key areas of your organization to inspect
Begin by looking at a few critical areas of your company. The easy areas to target
are sales, marketing, and engineering or product development as these are the areas
of most companies that keep an eye on competition. However, there are several
other areas to explore as well. The not-so-often-thought-of areas include human
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The Compelligence Competitive Maturity
Model Overview
resources, manufacturing, executive management, and even investment arms of the
company.
The goal here is to get a broad view of the competitive culture that exists within a
company. It is easy to target the people who already may use competitive information
as a self-validation, but it does not give an accurate picture of how competitive a
company really is. In truly competitive companies, the competitive culture permeates
to nearly every job function in some way or another.
Step 2: Question random employees about their familiarity of competitors and routes of
competitive information within the company.
It is not uncommon for companies to have formal competitive programs that are only
known or used by a limited number of employees. By getting input from a broad
spectrum of people in the company you can get a realistic picture of how competitive
the culture at a company may be. Sample questions can include:
1. Who are our main competitors? (Youʼll be surprised at the answers you
receive!)
2. What are our competitive advantages?
3. Where do you go to find information on our competitors?
4. If you had information about a competitorʼs product, what would you do with it?
5. To what extent do you consider competitors when you plan or execute on your
deliverables?
The objective of these questions is to find out how much the organization knows
about the competitors or thinks about them, as well as to determine how well an
existing competitive team is utilized or how effective it is.
Step 3: Identify personnel whose job descriptions (formal) or expectations (informal)
include CI practices
Categorize the people in your company who have roles that formally define
competitive deliverables, and those that function in a de facto competitive role.
Compare this to the number of competitors or competitive products and services that
exist in the market, as well as to the number of customers (i.e. sales people,
marketing, executives, etc.) that require competitive information.
If a formal competitive organization exists, it also is helpful to identify the partners or
allies to the CI team. This may include people who regularly provide or consume the
output of the team, people who are vocal or influential advocates of the team, or
people who share responsibilities with the team.
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The Compelligence Competitive Maturity
Model Overview
Step 3 will give you an idea of how formal the competitive structure is within your
company.
Step 4: Evaluate the investments the company makes in competitive data management
Categorize the systems that are used by the people who are responsible for
competitive intelligence. Some systems may be generic tools that are shared with
the rest of the company, such as Sharepoint sites or web infrastructures, and others
may be specialized tools such as specialized newsfeeds, software to track
competitor websites, or regular customized analysis reports from outside vendors.
You can also include in this any specialized budget for competitive testing labs or
product evaluations.
The goal of this step is to get an estimated idea of the importance that the company
places on competitive activities.
Step 5: Identify competitive deliverables, how they are delivered and who uses them
By identifying the outputs of your competitive teams or people, as well as the people
who consume the information, you will get an idea of where the competitive focus of
the company is. Determine if there are any standardized deliverables from the
competitive team that people regularly expect or rely on. Identify the method by
which the output from the competitive team is delivered. Do the customers of
competitive information have to go to several different locations in the company for
the output, or is there one centralized and organized source? Are there updates or
notices that are sent out on regular intervals, and if so, how are those updates
delivered? Finally identify the products that the competitive outputs feed into.
The objective of this step is to determine how widely competitive information is used
within the company, and how much company strategy relies on it.
For more information on the Compelligence Competitive Maturity Model, you may
contact us at [email protected]. We can help you assess areas that your
company can improve in, and also show you tools that will help your competitive
process.
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