Competitive intelligence: sources, ethics and interviews without confidential information

Competitive intelligence is the ongoing work of collecting and analyzing information about competitors and the industry they operate in, legally and ethically, so you make better decisions. The Strategic Consortium of Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) defines it in almost those words and draws a clear line between it and corporate spying, which it associates with illegal acts such as bribing or hiring employees to disclose confidential information.

In practice that means three habits: watch public sources on a schedule, talk to customers and industry people about how the market works, and keep a firm rule about what you will not ask for or use. A one-time study of your competitors is covered in competitor analysis. This page is about running competitive intelligence as a routine, and about the ethics that keep it useful.

A worked example: route software for waste haulers

Suppose you sell route-planning software to regional commercial waste haulers. A larger, publicly traded competitor has just announced a new routing module, and your sales team says two prospects mentioned it. You need to decide whether to change your roadmap, your pricing or nothing. This example is hypothetical and runs through the page.

Start with the decisions, not the sources

Collecting everything about a competitor produces a folder nobody reads. Write down the two or three decisions coming up in the next quarter, and the questions that would change them. In the example:

• Will haulers who already use the competitor's dispatch system adopt its new module instead of buying ours?
• Is the competitor pricing the module separately or bundling it?
• Which kinds of haulers is it targeting: large national operators or regional ones like our customers?

Every source below should answer one of those questions. If a source does not, skip it this month.

Where to look: public sources

For a public competitor, start with the 10-K. Investor.gov's guide to reading a 10-K explains that Item 1 describes the business and may cover the competition it faces, Item 1A lists the most significant risks, and Item 7 gives management's view of results and known trends. Quarterly 10-Qs follow the first three fiscal quarters, so they are a natural checkpoint. The SEC's EDGAR full-text search covers electronic filings since 2001, so you can search a phrase like "route optimization" across all filers, not only the competitor you already know about.

Patents are public records, and SCIP's ethics guidance says competitors are expected to review them. The USPTO's Patent Public Search covers U.S. patents and published applications; the USPTO says that from November 7, 2026 it will require users to sign in with a USPTO account.

Talk to customers and industry people

Public sources tell you what a competitor says. People tell you what buyers do. The most useful conversations are with:

• Your customers and prospects who evaluated the competitor. Ask what they saw in the demo, what they were told about price, and what they decided. They are describing their own experience, which is theirs to share.
• People who run the work. A dispatch manager at a hauling company can explain what makes routing hard in their region, whichever software they use.
• Former employees of the competitor. People who worked there in sales, support or implementation understand how buyers compare vendors and where rollouts go wrong. They also owe their former employer a duty of confidentiality, and you should respect it.

SCIP's guidance for the last group is specific: tell a former employee before the interview that you do not want confidential information about their prior employer, and if they reveal something that appears confidential, do not use it and report the matter to your management or legal counsel. Expert interviews and information boundaries covers how to handle the moment when someone says they cannot answer.

A useful test for what counts as confidential is the definition of a trade secret. The USPTO describes a trade secret as information that has economic value because it is not generally known, that others cannot find out through proper means, and that the owner takes reasonable steps to keep secret. Customer lists, discount rules and unreleased plans often fit that description. How buyers in a market evaluate vendors usually does not.

Open the call with a short statement such as:

I work at a company that competes with your former employer. I'm interested in how haulers choose and roll out routing software in general. Please don't share anything confidential: no customer names, internal numbers, pricing rules or plans. If a question gets close, say so and we'll skip it.

The ethics rules, in one place

The SCIP Code of Ethics and its FAQs give workable rules:

• Comply with the law everywhere you operate.
• Disclose your identity and organization before every interview. SCIP notes that misrepresenting who you are may be illegal, depending on the jurisdiction.
• Never access a competitor's systems without authorization. SCIP says obtaining a password to a competitor's site without authorization is illegal for any reason.
• Hand over confidential material you did not ask for. If you receive a competitor's confidential records, at a trade show or any other way, SCIP advises turning them over to management or legal staff and explaining how you got them.
• Apply the "red face" test to grey areas, such as documents a competitor discarded: how would your company feel if a newspaper reported what you did?
• Give honest conclusions, including when the evidence says a competitor is better for some buyers.

This page is general information, not legal advice, and SCIP says the same of its code. For a specific situation, ask a lawyer.

Turn it into a monthly routine

A small team can run competitive intelligence in a few hours a month:

1. Once a month: check each main competitor's pricing page, changelog, job postings and any new filings. Note what changed and the date.
2. Every sales loss or churn: record which competitor won and the stated reason. How to interview customers who chose another product covers the follow-up call.
3. Each quarter: hold three to five conversations with customers, prospects or industry people about the questions on your list.
4. Write one page per quarter: what changed, what it means for the decisions on your list, and how confident you are. Mark each point by source type (filing, website, interview) so readers can weigh it.

In the waste hauler example, that page might say: the competitor's filing describes the module as part of its dispatch suite, two prospects were quoted it as an add-on, and three dispatch managers said they would not switch routing tools mid-contract. The decision might be to hold the roadmap and add a comparison page for sales, then check again after the next quarterly filing.

Your next step

Write the two or three decisions your team faces this quarter and the questions that would change them. Set a monthly calendar reminder to check public sources, and book three conversations with people who evaluated the competitor you worry about most.

If you need to reach people outside your network, Instant Expert can find people who match a description you write, such as "dispatch managers at regional commercial waste haulers." You review who it finds, it sends your invitations, and you pay only for calls that get booked. Put your no-confidential-information line in the invitation as well as on the call. The directory pages for operations professionals in waste management and sales professionals in waste management are one place to start.