The 7 Best Competitive Intelligence Tools In 2021

Businesses produce large amounts of data every day.

It never stops.

We’re always generating it.

This is both good and bad news.

It’s good because we have lots of information that can support our business efforts and decisions. With large amounts of data, businesses can make educated decisions and take calculated risks.

The bad news is that there’s just so much!

Where do you start? What information do you need for your business? How do you make sense of it?

We’ve all been there at some point or another — wanting to take the next steps in our businesses but knowing how to do it.

This is why we made a list of great competitive intelligence tools. They can help you make sense of important information and help you discover new opportunities and markets.

Owler

Owler is a platform where you can track news and data from companies you follow. These companies can be competitors, customers, or partners.

You get a daily summary of the latest news from these companies and notifications of important events like new launches, or acquisitions. It’s useful as a daily newsletter with information from the companies you follow and the market.

Owler’s information is curated by both their team and their community. Although this is great for having a lot of information available, it’s also easy to get information that is inaccurate, irrelevant, or outdated.

If you want to use Owler, you’ll have to cross-reference the information you get, especially if you plan on making business decisions based on it. Also, consider that you won’t get information from smaller companies.

There’s a free version you can try to know if it’s the right fit.

Crunchbase

Probably one of the most popular tools out there!

With Crunchbase you can do competitor analysis, get market information, and even explore market trends.

One of the biggest advantages Crunchbase has is that it has a very big database. You can get information from virtually any company. The amount of data they have available is impressive and from reliable sources. Even if you find inaccurate information, you can report it and they will update it.

Crunchbase is very focused on information about funding, acquisitions, and mergers. If you’re looking for that, it’s perfect!

One of the downsides is the way they display their results (especially on mobile devices). It can become overwhelming, especially if you’re not used to doing competitive analysis.

To use it and make sense of all the available information, you need to know exactly what you’re looking for. Otherwise, you might not get the results you’re expecting.

InsideView

InsideView is focused on B2B relationships.

Thanks to InsideView’s competitor analysis, you can get both market information and landscape.

InsideView uses AI to aggregate and validate their data. It can give you details about markets, companies, and buyers. They can also give you insights and connections so you can know who your target audience is, when to reach out to it, and how to connect with them.

Sometimes you can know who you want to sell a service to, but not the name of the person in charge of making that decision. Lots of companies use InsideView because it has a directory of relevant people you can contact. It also has integrations with the most popular CRMs, which makes the work much easier.

The tool offers better information about bigger companies so if your business sells to medium-sized or smaller companies, the information you get might not be relevant.

ZoomInfo

If you want to know more about your market, then ZoomInfo might be right for you.

ZoomInfo was one of the biggest business databases from all these tools. With that information, you can get leads for sales and marketing teams.

It’s the best tool if you’re looking for something that will help you manage your leads, including features like territory planning, lead scoring, sales prospecting, and targeted outreach. In short, ZoomInfo can help you create a go-to-market strategy.

ZoomInfo also has many collaboration tools, so it’s great for teams as well.

Unfortunately, some users have come across inaccurate contact information, making it one of the disadvantages. For this reason, many use it as a starting point but not as a complete solution.

CB Insights

A very complete tool.

With CB Insights you can analyze your competitors, get market information, and predict market trends.

One of the things that makes CB Insights different from the rest of the tools mentioned here (except one), is that you can also use patents to get useful insights for your business.

CB Insights analyzes tons of unstructured data like news articles, patents, and startup websites to come up with emerging trends, competitor strategies, and new markets.

The target audience of CB Insights are big companies, think companies that have their own Research and Development departments. It has a lot of information available, it’s very overwhelming!

This tool is pretty complex and expensive. It’s a good tool, but you need to have a very clear idea of what you’re looking for if you want to try it.

upBOARD

upBOARD is for those taking the first steps into the competitive intelligence world.

If you’re not ready to start using any of the above tools just yet, you can start by using upBOARD’s templates so you can conduct your own competitive landscape analysis. These templates can help you organize information from your own research.

upBOARD is a great resource if you use it with other tools. upBOARD doesn’t do any research for you but it’s a great place to make sense of the information you get from other places.

It’s also a nice tool to use if you’re conducting your research as a team. upBOARD allows collaboration so you can all work on the same templates and add information.

KISSPlatform

KISSPlatform is a competitive business intelligence toolkit that uses AI and NLP (Natural Language Processing) to conduct a semantic competitor search.

It’s really intuitive and easy to use.

You describe your idea as if you were explaining it to a friend. Then, the AI does all the heavy lifting. It searches through millions of US patents and a curated database of over 18,000 companies to give you a snapshot of your competitive landscape, so you can iterate, adjust, and launch your idea.

The beauty of it is you can get immediate results to conserve your most precious assets, time, and money. iSearch.ai offers straightforward results without delay.

Many tools are useful if you know exactly what you need to ask and where to look. But that isn’t always the case. KISSPlatform helps you even if you don’t know what questions to ask, where to look, or how to search.

The Best Tool For You

Competitive intelligence is for every business. Regardless of your industry or size, you can take advantage of it!

As you could read, the tools we mentioned have different purposes. While they can be great for some businesses, others might not find them very useful.

That’s why before using any of them, think about what you’re looking for.

What’s the stage of your business? What’s your budget? What’s your goal? How much time can you invest in the tool? Who will be responsible for it?

We’re sure there’s a tool out there that can help you with your goals.

Now it’s time for you to do the rest!