The ability to gather, analyze and correctly interpret information affecting your competitive environment is priceless. If you want to know how your business stacks up against the competition, need assistance forecasting your competition’s next moves, need more information before maneuvering within your current market, or branching out into a new market, we can help you better understand your competitive landscape and feel more confident when making those strategic business decisions.

Competitive intelligence (CI) is the ongoing process of legally and ethically collecting and analyzing information about current or potential competitive forces within your market to help gain a competitive advantage and reduce strategic risk. CI can be broadly categorized into two main types: strategic and tactical.

Strategic CI focuses on supporting long-term planning, general market trends, and key market participants, which provides a strategic overview of your competitive forces influencing your industry. Strategic CI can help identify potential opportunities and threats, and can inform strategic initiatives like mergers and acquisitions, new market entry or other investment opportunities.

Tactical CI, on the other hand, focuses on more short-term, ad-hoc, immediate actions and reactions within your competitive environment. Tactical CI primarily focuses on the underlying movements with the market, by monitoring competitor activities, analyzing products and pricing strategies, and identifying opportunities to improve your own products, services or marketing campaigns.

Gathering, analyzing and interpreting useable information is more complex than conducting simple online searches. We collect information from a variety of sources and use innovative multi-disciplinary methods to thoroughly analyze and interpret our findings. Finally, we present you with easy-to-understand reports based on your company’s objectives, priorities and preferences. Alternatively, we can help you develop your own customized CI program, or help educate and train your internal staff regarding specific CI functions, leaving you with an organic system to help improve future decision-making when navigating your competitive environment.

Competitive Intelligence Support Services:

Industry/Market Analysis – assesses the main drivers of a particular industry, including industry economics, main competitors, suppliers, products/services, customers, logistics and technologies.

Competitive Landscape Analysis – provides an overview of the competitive environment, including key competitors, market share distribution, product/service analysis, market substitutes, as well as general competitive threats and possible opportunities.

Competitor Research & Analysis – focuses specifically on analyzing main competitors, including competitor mapping, competitor profiles, benchmarking, SWOT analysis, risk assessments, strategy forecasting and scenario analysis.

Competitor Activity Monitoring – similar to an early-warning radar system, monitors the activities of main competitors, through regular updates or ad-hoc reporting, detects, confirms or uncovers changes to competitor operations, indicating shifts in their capabilities, intentions, strategies, strengths, weaknesses and more.

A due diligence investigation is typically a one-time, comprehensive investigation or assessment related to making a single business transaction, partnership deal, or other investment decision. Due diligence investigations are commonly used to support key business decisions, such as merging with or acquiring another business, forming a strategic alliance or business partnership, investing in a company, hiring an executive or independent contractor, changing supply vendors, or any other individual case where the strategic business risks and rewards need to be better understood.

We provide due diligence investigative support by verifying relevant information pertaining to the legal, financial, operational, strategic or other relevant aspects of a business transaction. Our goal is to verify and/or reveal new information to give you a better picture of the potential risks, benefits and options involved in the transaction being considered, before making the decision.

Due Diligence Investigative Support Services:

Business Research & Analysis

Financial Modeling & Valuation Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping

Background Investigations & Vetting

Operational Scenario Analysis

Business Risk Assessments

Sometimes, it may not be practical for a business to require an extensive or in-depth research-focused solution. Instead, a customized special project, or a unique combination of specific tasks “bundled together” could be all that is needed to satisfy specific information gaps within a larger project. We can provide assistance with special projects involving product research, customer surveys, collections support, background investigations, litigation support, business inspections, financial modeling, business valuations, supplier/vendor interviews, vulnerability assessments, logistics research, etc.

Founded in 2022, BCI is a veteran-owned, licensed, bonded and insured private investigation firm specializing in competitive intelligence and due diligence services. We pull from decades of experience conducting intelligence research, financial analysis and field investigations and operations throughout the private and public sectors, with the ultimate goal of providing information businesses need to help understand and reduce the risks involved when facing a strategic business decision.

BCI employs a multi-disciplined approach to gathering, verifying and analyzing information to provide valuable insights to small and medium-sized businesses. Our strategic intelligence and investigative services have been used to aid in corporate strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, market entry, business partnerships, contractor agreements, and other strategic investment decisions. Whether you’re seeking to expand your current business, start a new business venture, form a new partnership, hire a contractor, or invest in another business - we can help uncover critical insights shedding light on the risks and benefits involved in a strategic course of action or other important business decisions.