Competitive Intelligence (CI) and Market Analysis (MA) are often used interchangeably, but while MA is looking at the dynamics of a specific market and industry - an investigation of what other businesses are doing from a more operational perspective, CI looks at the entire environment of the market. CI dissects finances, funding, founders, customers, products, competitors, marketing strategy, product dissemination, and pricing schemes. Start-ups, existing businesses, and funders rely on CI to help them decide if they want to enter into the marketplace and compete. It has been my experience that evaluating market size, climate, and geography, competitive market analysis, and details about founders and funders is fairly straight forward. But, investigating the marketing strategy, especially for businesses only around for a year or two, is extremely difficult. It takes a significant amount of time, effort, and sleuthing to get a handle on how and who they are marketing to, and what exactly they are marketing. When working on CI for a business, the deliverable I usually provide is a report that includes the following sections. By all means, this is not necessarily a complete list of what can be in the report, but it is the place to start. -Background (ownership, governance, organizational structure) In my extensive career, I have worked with several companies that either want to break into a new market or expand their service lines. One example is a project working with a large London-based telecom provider looking to acquire telecom companies in different markets where I managed the due diligence (a.k.a. CI) effort. We gathered information about the existing markets including market share, pricing schemes, customer demographics, financials, etc. to help them ensure the acquisition would fit into their own business plan focusing on viability and profitability. The client successfully proceeded with the acquisition, and I was a part of the merger and acquisition team that then closed those deals.