MRA Competitive Intelligence Gathering 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which technique involves systematically monitoring competitor job postings to infer strategic direction?
- Patent citation mapping
- Talent signal analysis (Correct answer)
- Share-of-voice tracking
- Mystery shopping audits
Correct answer: Talent signal analysis
Competitor job postings reveal hiring priorities that signal upcoming product launches, market expansions, or technology investments.
Question 2: A CI analyst wants to estimate a private competitor's revenue. Which indirect method is most reliable?
- Counting LinkedIn employee profiles
- Analyzing SEC filings of the competitor
- Extrapolating from industry revenue-per-employee benchmarks (Correct answer)
- Reading press release quotes from the CEO
Correct answer: Extrapolating from industry revenue-per-employee benchmarks
Revenue-per-employee benchmarks derived from comparable public companies allow credible revenue triangulation for private firms.
Question 3: What is 'competitive shadowing' in the context of CI fieldwork?
- Copying a competitor's marketing strategy verbatim
- Observing competitor sales reps interact with prospects in the field (Correct answer)
- Running parallel A/B tests on competitor ad copy
- Hiring former competitor employees
Correct answer: Observing competitor sales reps interact with prospects in the field
Competitive shadowing involves ethically observing competitor representatives in natural sales or service settings to capture messaging and tactics.
Question 4: Which framework specifically helps categorize competitive intelligence into strategic, tactical, and operational tiers?
- Porter's Five Forces
- The Intelligence Cycle (Correct answer)
- STEEP analysis
- Ansoff Matrix
Correct answer: The Intelligence Cycle
The Intelligence Cycle (planning, collection, processing, analysis, dissemination) organizes CI efforts across strategic, tactical, and operational levels.
Question 5: When conducting a 'win/loss' analysis, which data source provides the most unbiased competitor insight?
- Internal sales team debriefs
- Direct interviews with prospects who chose a competitor (Correct answer)
- Analyst reports mentioning the competitor
- The competitor's own case studies
Correct answer: Direct interviews with prospects who chose a competitor
Prospects who selected a competitor provide candid, firsthand reasons for their decision, free from internal sales team rationalization.
Question 6: A researcher notices a competitor filed 12 new patents in Q3 focused on AI-driven logistics. This is an example of which CI signal type?
- Lagging indicator
- Leading indicator (Correct answer)
- Coincident indicator
- Contra-indicator
Correct answer: Leading indicator
Patent filings precede product launches, making them leading indicators of a competitor's future technological direction.
Question 7: Which ethical guideline from SCIP (Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals) explicitly prohibits?
- Attending competitor trade show booths
- Misrepresenting one's identity to collect information (Correct answer)
- Purchasing competitor products for benchmarking
- Monitoring competitor social media accounts
Correct answer: Misrepresenting one's identity to collect information
SCIP's code of ethics explicitly forbids misrepresenting one's identity or employer when gathering competitive intelligence.
MRA Competitive Intelligence Gathering 2
Which technique involves systematically monitoring competitor job postings to infer strategic direction?