1. A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO
SELECTING THE RIGHT
COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE
SOFTWARE SOLUTION
Cipher Systems, LLC | info@cipher-sys.com | www.cipher-sys.com

2. 2 www.cipher-sys.com
So… you’ve been tasked to find a Competitive Intelligence (CI) software solution for your
organization.
Picking the right solution for your company is a complex process. Over the past 20 years,
the landscape of available CI solutions has grown in size and complexity with each of the tools
available today possessing a variety of strengths and weaknesses. How are you supposed to
determine which solution will be the best choice for your organization?
At Cipher, we’ve helped thousands of people just like you solve this very problem. We’ve
found that a robust and well thought-out evaluation of CI software boils down to 11
key factors. Using this comprehensive guide to select a CI solution, you’ll be much better
prepared to tackle this process and confidently reach a purchasing decision.
Phase I: Gathering Definitions &
Requirements
1. Objectives and Expectations
Make a list of all your initial objectives and expectations for
a CI solution, separating out necessities and luxuries. Be
realistic in your assessment. No technology will solve every
problem. Some will address certain issues particularly well
while falling short in other areas.
Before you even look at a demo or speak to any vendor,
ask your team the following questions:
• What is the problem we are trying to solve and how
do we expect CI software to help us solve this problem?
• Who will be the core users (C-level, Sales, R&D, CI/MI/
Insights team, Marketing, etc.) of the software?
• What specific user benefits are expected from the new
technology (reduced workload, increased efficiency,
better/easier/more timely communications, etc.)?
• What part of our business will see the most benefit?
The least?
• What are some secondary issues we hope to address
with this system?
• What specific criteria should be used to measure ROI
on the new CI software?
Be as complete as you can with these answers and consider sharing them with your prospective
vendors – it can help make their presentations more applicable to you and your situation.
Some example problems we
often hear from our clients are:
“We spend too much time
searching multiple sources and
sifting through an overflow of
information”
“We have no time to actually
analyze the information we’re
collecting”
“We spend too much time
responding to random questions
from our internal customers”
“We have trouble finding old
documents or reports we want to
refer back to”
“We have multiple parts of our
organization paying for the same
research”

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2. Stakeholders
The old adage “too many cooks spoil the broth” is true in our experience and we recommend
trying to aim for an optimum mix of stakeholders (approx. 6) on the team that will be evaluating
possible solutions. Building the right team at the beginning can save you time later, by
preventing the need to run final decisions past potential bottlenecks.
In our experience, companies who assigned a mix of people similar to that shown below
tend to be most satisfied with the solution they chose over the long-term:
Core Users – 2
These are people who will be using the technology on a daily basis, most often from the CI,
MI, or Insights team.
Decision Maker – 1
Make sure that whomever is empowered to make the final investment decision is part of the
process from the start.
Department Representatives – Varies
We recommend you involve at least one representative from each department that uses
competitive intelligence within your organization (which should be every department). This
could include C-Suite, Marketing, Sales, R&D, Product Managers, etc.
Information Technology – 1
You will need a knowledgeable person from your IT department to be involved in this process
to ensure whatever solution you choose will meet any technical or security requirements your
company enforces.
The size of the team will vary based on the size of your organization but the key takeaway here is
to not make the software purchasing decision in a silo. As with any CI solution, more inputs will
lead to more well-defined insights and broader support from across the organization will help
you justify the purchase.

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3. Technical and Security Requirements
This is a crucial step in determining what type of CI software you will need. Defining these
requirements in advance will help you narrow down the field since not every system will be able
to meet your company’s requirements.
All vendors should be able to supply you with their system specifications or at least be able
to explain how they address the following:
• How is the platform delivered? Is it a desktop application, an “on-premise” solution (meaning
the software lives on your company’s servers), a “hosted” solution (one that lives on the
vendor’s servers), or is it a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform?
The cloud is here to stay but some companies impose fairly strict security requirements on
third-party systems so it’s worthwhile to check on existing policies with your IT department.
• Does the solution work with Single-Sign-On (SSO)?
SSO provides a lot of convenience for users and some organizations mandate it with their third
party systems. Make sure to ask prospective vendors if they support SSO and check with your IT
department for their requirements as well.
• Can this solution aggregate and house all of the information I am currently using?
Be prepared with a list of legacy databases/systems to provide prospective vendors. This could
save time later in the process if the vendor does not have an integration strategy.
• Does the solution offer any additional data that I do not have access to today?
Some CI platforms serve only as repositories for information you are already collecting or
acquiring through other vendors, while others come with integrated access to key datasets.
• Does the vendor provide user training for the solution? How much training is generally
required? How does the vendor deliver this training? Is the cost for the training included in
the overall price or does it cost extra?
4. Inputs
Think about what information you need to access in order to do an
effective analysis. You’ll want to evaluate what existing data sources
are available within a CI solution, and what can/should be added to it.
A couple of key questions to think about are:
• Do you need access to custom news feeds?
• Do you need detailed financial data about your competitors?
• Do you need data about your competitors’ hiring trends?
• Do you need to be able to house research from third parties
and/or consultants?
• Are there industry-specific datasets you need access to?
• Are there particular trade publications that you follow?
• Do you need to collect intelligence from your off-site employees?
Do you know what data
you will need?
Data needs will differ
based on your industry
and business model. For
instance, our clients in the
life-sciences industry rely
on data from the US Food
and Drug Administration,
the National Institutes of
Health, and the US Patent
and Trademark Office.

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5. Outputs
Define what outputs (reports, charts, etc.) you and your management
team will be expecting from this system. Some users will prefer a
dashboard view with all of the information they need right at their
fingertips, while others will prefer to receive periodic reports that they
can consume on their own time.
When outlining system output requirements, some good questions
to ask yourself are:
• How does your team consume information currently (ie, overview
charts or full-length articles)?
• What types of outputs do you already produce (newsletter, custom
CI reports, etc.)?
• What types of deliverables do you want a CI solution to automate?
What will save you the most time?
Some solutions offer basic newsletter functionality while others will
offer very sophisticated dashboards, reports, and alerting features.
• Will users want to “pull” information from a system dashboard that
is automatically updated or would they prefer to have information
“pushed” to them through a report or a newsletter?
6. Current Workflow/Business Practices
The best way to maximize user adoption when implementing a new CI
solution (or any software solution) is to match, as closely as you can,
the way your employees already work. For example, if contributions
from individual employees are important to you, look for a system that
can accept and categorize emails rather than asking staff to complete
dedicated CI forms. By reducing the learning curve and minimizing
additional work, you will increase the likelihood of employee buy-in.
To outline your workflow, consider the following questions:
• What steps should a user follow in order to create intelligence?
• Are there existing processes that should be copied in the solution
workflow?
• Are there opportunities to improve these processes with your CI
solution?
• What tools should the users have at their disposal in order to
efficiently create intelligence (searching, reporting, analysis tools, etc.)?
• What data do you need access to in order to complete the analysis
your team needs to make strategic decisions?

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Phase II: Thinking Critically
7. Customization
Thinking critically about how you want your tool customized will help you narrow down your list
of viable options quickly. As you begin to think through this aspect, you will need to understand
the two basic types of customization:
Option 1: Vendor-Customizable Systems Option 2: User-Customizable Systems
As you begin to speak with vendors, you
will hear a lot about how their tool “can
be configured” to do almost anything you
can think of—and that’s generally true.
However, as you start talking about different
customizations for different user groups,
let alone each individual user, you will soon
find yourself talking about multiple complex
customizations. Most vendor customizations
will carry an additional price tag.
Modern technologies, like widget frameworks,
can allow each user on your system to
individually customize the tool to do exactly
what they need it to do, look and feel exactly
as they want it to, and provide them with
exactly the data they need. These types of
systems can be much more intuitive to use,
so they tend to require less training to get
started and tend to be much more flexible in
the long run.
A vendor-customizable system can be the right choice for a large organization with a
substantial budget to dedicate to maintaining and updating it. However, in our experience,
user-customizable systems, are far more cost effective over both the short- and long-term.
User-customizable systems are generally less expensive upfront because there is no lengthy
“implementation” phase where the vendor collects your requirements and does all of the
customization work.
Change is inevitable and you will want to make modifications to your platform over time. With
a user-customizable tool, you can make those changes yourself. With a vendor-customizable
tool, each time you want to make a modification to your system, you will find yourself paying the
vendor more to do it for you.

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8. Access to Information
Consider who will use and share the information contained in your system. Here we need to
think about the types of information that will be housed in the new solution and the access
granted to different user types.
Some good questions to think about are:
• How many people will be using your new CI system?
• What types of users will they be – core or casual (do they require full editing rights, or will
they simply need to consume the content and analysis housed within the platform)?
• Are there certain documents or datasets to which access needs to be restricted?
• Will there be rules regarding sensitivity of the data, and who has access to what?
• Will information from the system be shared outside of the system (emails, download links,
etc.) or only among users within the system (system alerts and dashboards)?
As a best practice, we recommend asking potential vendors about how their solution handles
document and information security. A member of your IT team should be able to define any
current minimum standards and existing document sharing protocols.
9. Analytics
It’s important to note the different types of “analytics” that
you will hear about as you begin to engage with potential
vendors and what degree of analytics your team requires.
The terms “data analytics”, “big data”, and “big data analytics”
are hot buzzwords right now and it’s important to understand
how they factor into your CI solution.
Consider the following CI features and whether or not
your team will benefit from them:
• Will this solution replace/substitute for a dedicated data visualization tool (Tableau, Quid, etc.)?
• Does the solution require you to develop your own taxonomy or keyword tree?
Custom taxonomies or “keyword trees” can offer a high degree of fidelity in how a system
organizes your information and populates search results but they require a significant effort on
your part to make sure they are properly tuned and they require constant maintenance to
ensure they don’t get stale.
• Does the solution use advanced analytics like semantic analysis, natural language processing
(NLP), or other machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to organize
information and enable discovery analysis?
There can be a tradeoff when using AI technologies to organize information because no
natural language processing technology is perfect—at least not yet. But these technological
advances can offer tremendous time savings over a custom taxonomy or keyword tree structure.

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Phase III: Picking a Solution
10. See It In Action
Blocking off time to schedule a live demonstration of prospective solutions is a good way to get
an initial feel for the solution and narrow down your choices.
During or immediately following the demo, be sure to ask these questions:
• What is the vendor’s methodology?
Some firms approach the CI space as just another transactional software sale, whereas others
will apply a more consultative approach and partner with you to address your specific needs.
• What is the vendor’s Competitive Intelligence knowledge and experience?
• Have they implemented the solution in similar companies (ie, size, industry, location)?
Often your gut feeling is helpful here. If a prospective vendor is speaking your language and
understanding your questions/issues, they may make a good partner for your organization and
really help you leverage your new software solution.
• How responsive and helpful is their team?
This is an important indicator as to how they’ll treat you once the sale is over. Timely and
thoughtful responses from the sales team suggests a customer-focused culture that will carry
over to your client relationship.
• What back-up services and system maintenance do they offer?
• Is training for your team on how to use the system included?
Vendor-provided training will help your team get up to speed and start using your new CI
solution faster and save you the time of having to schedule/conduct trainings yourself.
11. Sometimes It Boils Down To Price
Although pricing should not be the only factor when selecting a CI solution, it is important to
have at least a ballpark figure in mind before you spend a lot of time and effort evaluating a
solution that is outside your of budget. Make sure you understand the vendor’s pricing model
in detail before you move forward. We suggest working with vendors whose pricing system
is clearly available on their website and easy to understand. There are a wide-range of pricing
options out there and there will likely be some tradeoffs to make before you sign the contract.
Choosing a CI software solution can be a complicated and lengthy process but the more effort
you put into gathering requirements, thinking critically about your organization’s needs and
comparing/evaluating different providers, the easier it will be to choose the right solution to
meet your needs.
Cipher has been helping organizations define and address their competitive intelligence needs
for more than 20 years. To view more helpful resources, visit www.cipher-sys.com or write to
us at info@cipher-sys.com to schedule a consultation today.

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info@cipher-sys.com
www.cipher-sys.com
CONTACT US
Cipher is an innovative consultancy focused on delivering business intelligence services
and technology solutions that help our clients make smarter, faster decisions. Leveraging
over 20 years of experience, our team of experts serves as the trusted partner of many
of the world’s largest and most respected organizations. Our clients rely on us to solve
their toughest strategic challenges and to provide strategic insight into all aspects of the
marketplace.
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