Your Competitive Brief Should Start With a Decision

“Find out what our competitors are doing” sounds like a reasonable brief. It is also an efficient way to commission a great deal of work that nobody knows how to use. The researcher collects prices, screenshots, reviews and social posts; the leadership team receives a comprehensive document and returns to the decision it was already avoiding.

Competitive intelligence needs a customer inside the business. Someone must be deciding whether to change a proposition, enter a market, defend an audience or invest in a capability. Without that decision, the research has no natural stopping point and no useful standard of relevance.

Specify what could change your mind

Compare two briefs. The first asks for an overview of nearby hotels. The second asks whether a proposed midweek residential leadership package has a credible opening in the local market, given its price, room requirements and delivery costs. The second creates a research boundary: relevant audiences, competing occasions, packages, booking conditions and proof of demand.

It also identifies what would change the decision. A competitor might already serve the audience exceptionally well. The apparent gap might exist because buyers do not want the format. Or the available evidence might suggest demand, while the operational requirements make the proposed offer unattractive. A good brief allows the answer to be inconvenient.

Write down the decision deadline. A report completed after the venue has committed to a refurbishment is documentation, not decision support. Work backwards from when the evidence must influence the choice, including time for customer conversations and an operational review.

Separate discovery from validation

An early scan should identify plausible competitors, alternatives and unknowns. It should not be expected to settle the investment case. Use it to decide where deeper work is justified, then validate the few assumptions capable of changing the outcome.

For a hypothetical new spa package, the discovery stage might reveal similar offers at different price points. Validation would examine what is included, when the offers are available, which customer occasion they serve and whether your customers recognise the proposed difference. Public visibility alone does not establish sales or profit.

Keep a short evidence table with the observation, source, date, interpretation and confidence. A rival's published package is an observation. “They are winning our customers” is a claim requiring additional evidence. Putting both in separate columns prevents confident language from disguising a missing fact.

Include the people who must act

Marketing may commission the research, but the response can land in reservations, staffing, procurement or service design. Bring those owners into the brief. Otherwise the report can recommend a promise the business cannot sustain, or dismiss an opportunity because the researcher never saw a practical way to deliver it.

Ask each owner for one constraint and one opportunity. The operations lead may identify spare capacity that makes a targeted offer viable. A frontline colleague may explain why a rival's apparently attractive booking arrangement would create confusion for your customers. Finance can distinguish an affordable experiment from a commitment that needs stronger evidence.

The final output should state the recommended decision, the alternatives considered, the evidence that supports it and what remains uncertain. It should also name the next review trigger. If the recommendation is to wait, specify what would justify action; otherwise waiting becomes the default rather than a deliberate choice.

Q Branch's view is straightforward: research earns its place when it improves judgement. Before commissioning another competitor report, finish the sentence, “We will use this to decide…” If that sentence remains vague, sharpen the brief first. Q Spy is a starting point for a focused investigation, with leadership accountable for the choice that follows.

Further reading: Why competitors are not your strategy.

Illustrative stock photograph. Photo: Vitaly Gariev via Pexels. Image licence.