Strategic Marketing: The Importance of Competitive Intelligence in the Decision-Making Process for Strategic Marketing

Abstract

Corporations' underlying principles have altered dramatically as a result of advances and threats over the previous two decades. Internal and external pressures on businesses have made it necessary for them to keep a careful eye on their surroundings, either to maintain competitiveness or to learn more about potential threats and opportunities. This study aims to determine if and how competitive intelligence might benefit small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Researchers evaluated the direct influence of competitive intelligence on strategic marketing decisions made by SMEs by focusing on five different types of intelligence: market intelligence, competitor intelligence, customer intelligence, partnership intelligence, and technical intelligence. The researchers also used the embeddedness of competitive intelligence as a moderator to assess the effect of competitive intelligence on marketing strategies. The research team used hierarchical multiple regression and the Sobel test to analyze the impact of competition information on the marketing strategies of SMEs in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Nonetheless, the study quantified the direct influence on strategic marketing decisions made by SMEs by employing five distinct categories of competitive intelligence (market intelligence, competitive intelligence, customer intelligence, partner intelligence, and technical intelligence). Additionally, researchers used competitive intelligence as a mediator to evaluate the impact of competitive intelligence on strategic marketing choices. The study found that in all areas of competitive intelligence (market intelligence, competitor intelligence, customer intelligence, partner intelligence, and technical intelligence), competitive intelligence has a direct and ingrained effect on the strategic marketing decisions made by small and medium-sized businesses.