Competitive Watch is the action of gathering, analyzing, and applying information about products, domain constituents, customers, and competitors for the short term and long term planning needs of an organization. Competitive Watch (CW) is both a process and a product. The process of collecting, storing and analyzing information about the competitive arena results in the actionable output of intelligence ascertained by the needs prescribed by an organization.

Competitive Watch is an ethical and legal business practice; its focus is on the external business environment. There is a process involved in gathering information, converting it into intelligence and then utilizing this in business decision making

Organizations use competitive intelligence to compare themselves to other organizations ("competitive benchmarking"), to identify risks and opportunities in their markets, and to pressure-test their plans against market response (war gaming), which enable them to make informed decisions

	Define your industry - scope and nature of the industry
	Determine who your competitors are
	Determine who your customers are and what benefits they expect
	Determine What are your competitor's products and service offerings
	Determine what the key success factors are in your industry
	Rate each competitor on each of the key success factors
	Determine What are their strategies