Competitive intelligence (CI) can be especially valuable to private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms, which often operate somewhat in the dark within their industry segments. Holdings in newly-forming or niche industries have few public companies or established business models to provide adequate references for benchmarking and other meaningful insights.

Given this reality and the goals of private investors, PE and VC firms have a shallow understanding of their portfolio companies’ key competitors, limited to core strengths and weaknesses and basic knowledge of product or service lines. They lack detailed information on products, key employees, clients, financial performance and other areas. Good CI gathering can fill in the gaps, offering the context needed to foster ideas and support decisions to identify the best new investment opportunities and maximize the value of their existing portfolio.

How can CI enhance the value of private investment portfolios?  Read the full posting here.