# Who Does Competitive Intelligence? Four Steps in the Team > Competitive intelligence is a process of four steps, and each one needs a name in the team. Why deciding on the sources comes before everything else. - Author: Dr. Karsten Richter - Publisher: Picasi GmbH - Topic: Video explanations - Last updated: 2026-10-22 - Canonical URL: https://source-first-intelligence.com/en/who-does-competitive-intelligence/ - Language: en - Video: https://player.mediadelivery.net/embed/774305/965b683e-ac5b-457d-826a-543200e3fe0b?autoplay=false&loop=false&muted=false&preload=true&responsive=true Who does competitive intelligence on your team? If the honest answer is “everyone, a little,” then this applies: when everyone is responsible, no one is. The video shows in just over a minute how to change that: competitive intelligence is a process of four steps, and each step needs a name. ## Competitive intelligence is a process There is no single accepted definition of competitive intelligence. In 2013, Rene Pellissier and Tshilidzi Nenzhelele compared 50 definitions from the literature for the South African Journal of Information Management. 38 of them describe competitive intelligence as a process ([Pellissier and Nenzhelele 2013](https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/559/667)). The definition the two authors derive from this describes a process that produces actionable intelligence and passes it on to decision makers: planning, ethically and legally collecting, processing, analyzing. The video puts these steps into four words: plan, collect, analyze, share. For the daily work of a marketing or sales team, this version is enough. It makes clear that competitive intelligence is more than reading news about competitors. If all you do is collect, you end up with a full folder and no decision that benefits from it. ## Every step needs a name A process without owners stalls at the point where nobody feels addressed. In our view, analysis is the step most likely to be left behind. Forwarding a link is quick, making a judgment is not. Someone would have to say what a competitor's new offer means for your own price list or for the next sales conversation, and that takes time and the courage to make a call. So the video suggests something very simple: write a name under each of the four steps. It does not have to be a dedicated position or a department. One example: the marketing lead plans, an assistant collects, product management analyzes, and the sales lead shares what the field team needs. It only means that for every step it is clear who does it and when. ## Source-First starts with planning The first step shapes all the others. When planning, someone decides whose publications you follow: which competitors, which associations, which trade media, which customers. Only then does collecting begin, and it happens with exactly these senders, across every channel they use. That is why the key message of the video is: **Whoever picks the sources decides what you see.** If a competitor is not on the list, it does not show up in collecting, in analysis or in anything you share. If it is on the list, you see its own publications in the original, with date and sender. This step comes before all the others, and it deserves a person who owns it on purpose. This is the core of the Source-First approach: first who, then where, then what. The order makes the difference, not the tool. ## One name per step is enough Even a small team can cover the whole process. Four steps do not mean four people: in the video, marketing plans and analyzes, sales collects and shares. What matters is that no step is left without a name. If you put this into practice, you gain three things. You know who on your team owns which step. You choose the sources before anything is collected. And nothing gets dropped because nobody feels responsible. ## What a source list cannot do A source list only covers who is on it. Anything outside it stays invisible with this approach, for example a new provider nobody knows yet. This is where a topic search is strong: it is quick to set up when a question about a topic comes up, and it also finds senders who are not on any list yet. The two do not exclude each other. Whoever plans can use a topic search deliberately as a complement and add new senders that turn up to the list. ## References 1. Pellissier, Rene; Nenzhelele, Tshilidzi E.: Towards a universal definition of competitive intelligence. South African Journal of Information Management 15(2), 15 October 2013. DOI 10.4102/sajim.v15i2.559. [https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/559/667](https://sajim.co.za/index.php/sajim/article/view/559/667) (accessed 8 October 2026)