Market Challenges: High setup and maintenance cost

The high setup and maintenance cost associated with competitive intelligence software can hamper the global competitive intelligence software market growth. Setting up competitive intelligence software requires heavy investments as these platforms offer advanced features and capabilities for collecting, analyzing and distributing intelligence. Businesses need to invest in skilled resources to install, configure and optimize the use of these complex software. These also require data scientists and analysts to feed reliable external sources into the platform and interpret gathered intelligence. This leads to increased initial licensing fees and personnel costs.

Once setup, the maintenance and support costs of these solutions are also significantly high. Software upgrades, technical support subscriptions, additional storage space for handling growing volumes of intelligence data, and training of employees to leverage advanced analytics tools entail continuous financial obligations. As competitive intelligence needs to be refreshed on a real-time basis due to dynamic nature of business environments, the operating expenses add up substantially over the long-run use of these platforms. This makes competitive intelligence software unaffordable for many small and medium enterprises with limited budgets for technology investments.

Market Opportunities: Untapped potential of SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) form the backbone of economies worldwide. However, in many countries these have not fully leveraged competitive intelligence software to optimize business strategies and gain competitive advantage. If SMEs adopt such tools effectively, it can offer market growth opportunities.

Competitive intelligence software provides vital insights into customer behavior, industry trends, competitor strategies and future disruptions. It analyzes large amounts of internal and external data through advanced analytics. For SMEs with limited R&D resources, these tools can help gain a comprehensive understanding of the business environment at a minimal cost. Particularly during uncertain economic times like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, timely insights into demand patterns, supply chain dynamics can help SMEs mitigate risks and pivot business models quickly.