This was an interesting read, I totally agree with you on how much advantage, insights and inspiration CI gives you as a team to differentiate yourself from the rest. It helps you tell your customers why you and not your competitors.
As a PM, we definitely need to see the bigger picture and avoid copying what the competitor has done but rather learn from what they have done and find out what their customers are saying about that so either do better or do way better.
I always say that my area of specialization within the vast PMM spectrum is insights & intelligence (competitive, market, user, customer). And many get it but I've definitely had interviews in the past where people subtly imply or indicate via body language that doing CI in a PMM role is a given. This attitude is baffling to me; seeing as I've met insanely talented PMMs but maybe 1 who is strong in this arena.
The "inspiration, not imitation" framing nails the real problem that most CI programs produce a competitive matrix that gathers dust instead of surfacing strategic options worth acting on.
Your time estimate tracks with my experience too. The bottleneck was never the research itself; it was keeping intel current without someone manually babysitting it every week. We got tired of that cycle and built Meertrack (https://meertrack.com/) to automate competitor monitoring. Fresh intel on demand instead of a snapshot that goes stale by lunch.
One point I'd push on: CRM data as a competitive source isn't just underrated, it's the fastest win most teams ignore. Sales reps are sitting on a pile of "why we lost" signals in deal notes that almost never flows back into product or positioning decisions.
This was an interesting read, I totally agree with you on how much advantage, insights and inspiration CI gives you as a team to differentiate yourself from the rest. It helps you tell your customers why you and not your competitors.
As a PM, we definitely need to see the bigger picture and avoid copying what the competitor has done but rather learn from what they have done and find out what their customers are saying about that so either do better or do way better.
I always say that my area of specialization within the vast PMM spectrum is insights & intelligence (competitive, market, user, customer). And many get it but I've definitely had interviews in the past where people subtly imply or indicate via body language that doing CI in a PMM role is a given. This attitude is baffling to me; seeing as I've met insanely talented PMMs but maybe 1 who is strong in this arena.
The Holy grail of competitor research. Awesome work Aatir. God bless!
Thank you, Syed. Appreciate it.
The "inspiration, not imitation" framing nails the real problem that most CI programs produce a competitive matrix that gathers dust instead of surfacing strategic options worth acting on.
Your time estimate tracks with my experience too. The bottleneck was never the research itself; it was keeping intel current without someone manually babysitting it every week. We got tired of that cycle and built Meertrack (https://meertrack.com/) to automate competitor monitoring. Fresh intel on demand instead of a snapshot that goes stale by lunch.
One point I'd push on: CRM data as a competitive source isn't just underrated, it's the fastest win most teams ignore. Sales reps are sitting on a pile of "why we lost" signals in deal notes that almost never flows back into product or positioning decisions.