Relay for competitor and market tracking

The problem

Competitive intelligence platforms assume an analyst to run them. A team of five needs something that works with nobody in charge of it, and that people keep reading after the first month.

How teams set Relay up

• One agent for competitors, by name. Launches, pricing changes, funding, acquisitions, senior hires.
• One agent for the market. Regulators, trade bodies, new entrants, large customer wins and losses.
• Competitor names as terms. A story that mentions one is never dropped as marginal.
• Changelogs and pricing pages as sources. Much of what a competitor does never becomes news. A page you paste is read in full on every run.
• A shared desk, posted to a channel. The briefing goes to Slack or Telegram, where the team already talks.

An example brief

"We sell scheduling software to dental practices in the UK. Watch our named competitors and any new entrant for product launches, pricing changes, funding and acquisitions. A development is something a customer or an investor would notice. Skip award announcements, sponsored content and general dental industry news."

What arrives

A briefing two or three times a week is usually right; competitors rarely do something every day. Some briefings will be short, and a week in which nothing notable happened takes ten seconds to read.

What it does not cover

Relay searches the news and the web and reads the pages you give it. It does not monitor social media, review sites or advertising.