SPP Competitive Intelligence & Benchmarking 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which benchmarking type compares internal processes against external best practices from any industry, not just direct competitors?
- Competitive benchmarking
- Functional benchmarking (Correct answer)
- Internal benchmarking
- Strategic benchmarking
Correct answer: Functional benchmarking
Functional benchmarking identifies best-in-class practices from any industry and adapts them to improve internal processes.
Question 2: A competitive intelligence analyst discovers a competitor's patent filing revealing a new product direction. This is an example of information gathered from:
- Human intelligence (HUMINT)
- Open-source intelligence (OSINT) (Correct answer)
- Signals intelligence (SIGINT)
- Covert intelligence
Correct answer: Open-source intelligence (OSINT)
Patent filings are publicly available records, making them a classic open-source intelligence (OSINT) source.
Question 3: In the CI cycle, the 'tasking' phase primarily involves:
- Collecting raw data from field sources
- Analyzing patterns in competitor behavior
- Defining intelligence requirements and prioritizing topics (Correct answer)
- Distributing finished intelligence to stakeholders
Correct answer: Defining intelligence requirements and prioritizing topics
The tasking phase establishes what intelligence is needed, by whom, and with what priority before collection begins.
Question 4: When using Porter's Five Forces as a benchmarking framework, which force specifically examines the competitive pressure from substitute products?
- Threat of new entrants
- Bargaining power of buyers
- Threat of substitutes (Correct answer)
- Rivalry among existing competitors
Correct answer: Threat of substitutes
The threat of substitutes force evaluates whether customers can meet their needs with different product types from outside the industry.
Question 5: A company tracks competitors' job postings to infer their strategic priorities. This CI technique is called:
- War gaming
- Social network analysis
- Employment intelligence (Correct answer)
- Reverse engineering
Correct answer: Employment intelligence
Employment intelligence analyzes hiring patterns and job descriptions to deduce a competitor's capability investments and strategic direction.
Question 6: The 'analysis of competing hypotheses' (ACH) method in competitive intelligence is designed to:
- Rank competitors by market share
- Reduce cognitive bias by systematically testing multiple explanations (Correct answer)
- Prioritize intelligence collection tasks
- Benchmark financial ratios against industry peers
Correct answer: Reduce cognitive bias by systematically testing multiple explanations
ACH forces analysts to consider all plausible hypotheses against evidence simultaneously, reducing confirmation bias.
Question 7: Strategic benchmarking differs from operational benchmarking primarily because it focuses on:
- Cost reduction targets and efficiency metrics
- Long-term competitive positioning and business model innovation (Correct answer)
- Quality defect rates and cycle times
- Customer satisfaction scores and NPS
Correct answer: Long-term competitive positioning and business model innovation
Strategic benchmarking examines how top-performing organizations achieve superior long-term results and competitive advantage.
SPP Competitive Intelligence & Benchmarking 2
Which benchmarking type compares internal processes against external best practices from any industry, not just direct competitors?