Market and Competitive Intelligence War Room Strategy to Tackle Pandemic-triggered Scenarios

• Consumer & Market Insights

Note: Even though the COVID pandemic is behind us, this is a great guide to business continuity in volatile markets. 

Some call this pandemic a “black swan” event, unforeseen; others think of it as a “gray rhino”, obvious, visible, coming right at you, with a large potential impact. But one thing is clear, it has forced companies to relook at the way they conduct business, and it has changed consumer behavior in far-reaching ways.

As companies seek to understand new consumer behaviors and market trends to adjust their business and go-to-market models, and possibly accelerate their move to digital channels, there are many burning questions they need to answer:

• How will business models evolve? As the crisis disrupts the industry landscape, what are the risks and opportunities?
• What’s the big trend that could shape our industry for the next decade? What are the multiyear trends that will be fast-forwarded and what are the new trends we need to prepare for?
• How do we build adaptability and flexibility into our strategy and operations?
• How do we increase the intensity and speed of decision making as we navigate the uncertainty ahead?

Market And Competitive Intelligence Services Help Companies Navigate Shifts In Business And Maintain Relevance

While many companies have systems in place to monitor markets and competition, the pandemic has taken most by surprise. Many companies have not implemented Market And Competitive Intelligence (M&CI) systems and are scrambling to adapt. Today, it is imperative for companies to aggressively consider M&CI so they can adapt and extend their lead over the competition.

Companies that adapt faster to the initial upswing—and eventually, the new environment—will emerge stronger. Swift and effective decision-making is key and companies have to implement these decisions at a lightning pace. Apart from that, they also have to adjust their plans and strategies as situations change.

M&CI helps organizations improve three critical areas – Predict, Plan, and Position. First, it helps companies predict market changes before they adversely impact their business. As the company monitors shifts in business direction and early fluctuations that may impact not only its business model but the industry as a whole, it can plan and strategize for the best course of action. This helps brands position themselves in ways that use market situations to their advantage.

How Market & Competitive Intelligence Helps Businesses Stay Competitive

M&CI War Rooms

How do companies use the Predict-Plan-Position cycle to their advantage? This can be done through dedicated ‘war rooms’ that are set up where leadership teams take an “insights to action” approach to their business systems.

In the current environment with most people working from home, this could be a virtual space fully enabled with near real-time information access and digital collaboration tools necessary for such an exercise.

By tracking competitors’ activities and identifying market trends and customer needs, Market and Competitive Intelligence equips businesses with vital information for the most effective war room outcomes. This intelligence may help companies cope with specific challenges they may be facing or serve as an ongoing source of competitive edge and business growth.

An M&CI War Room must have —

• Clear business objectives
• All vital contextual market and competitor information
• Key stakeholders and, if relevant, subject matter experts
• A clear plan of action for decision-makers by the end of the session/s

A Strategic Early Warning Systems capability regularly alerts the company to opportunities and threats in the business environment. By creating a system that provides warnings well in advance, it is possible to use war rooms to —

• Act proactively to avoid threats and leverage opportunities.
• Use Scenario-Based strategic planning – inform the development of strategies that work across various scenario options and enable the organization to reimagine its business boundaries.
• Develop their Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy.
• Set business goals, plan future actions, and gain a competitive advantage.
• Outline the necessary steps to enter new markets, specify the actions required to reach target audiences, build a good market base, and gain an advantage over competing brands.

How can Course5 Intelligence Help?

Courese5 has been providing M&CI services to its clients for many years. With AI-powered competition sensing we provide our clients with the knowledge they need to stay ahead of the competition and win in the market. Because of the disruption caused by COVID-19, we have taken a different approach to set up dedicated war rooms for our clients. Course5’s M&CI War Room capabilities offer companies real-time Early Warning Systems by tracking market changes and transitions and emerging competitive threats that have the potential to affect the business. We use proprietary competitive intelligence platforms, that leverage Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to synthesize information across multiple data sources. This platform includes social media intelligence and primary market research data, among other data sources.

A war room team consists of analysts with deep domain expertise in key industry verticals to deliver to key stakeholders an action-oriented strategic plan to fuel the current and future growth of their business, which could be region/vertical-specific. Our team enables knowledge management for competitive intelligence and delivers winning Go-To-Market strategy roadmaps to optimize the business for new pandemic-driven buyer journeys. We optimize sales and marketing channel shifts through key performance indicators or critical metrics that matter most to decision-makers.

Course5 is an ideal partner to help businesses navigate emerging business environments in an effective way. We have the necessary tools and resources to provide the right information at the right time to come out of the current crisis strong and dynamic.