Secondary Research
Intelligence gathered from existing published sources—analyst reports, news, filings, reviews, and public data—to understand competitive dynamics.
What is Secondary Research?
Secondary Research in competitive intelligence involves collecting and analyzing information from existing published sources rather than gathering it directly. Sources include: analyst reports (Gartner, Forrester, IDC), news and press releases, SEC filings and earnings calls, patent databases, job postings, customer reviews (G2, Capterra, Trustpilot), social media, competitor websites and documentation, academic research, industry association data, and competitive intelligence platform aggregations. Secondary research is more scalable and lower-cost than primary research and should form the foundation of any competitive intelligence program.
Why It Matters
Secondary research provides a continuous, scalable stream of competitive signals without the time investment of primary research. It covers the broad competitive landscape—tracking changes across multiple competitors simultaneously—and provides historical context to identify trends. Job postings reveal strategic direction months before announcements. Earnings calls reveal financial pressures and strategic priorities. Customer reviews surface product weaknesses in customers' own words. Patent filings preview future product investments. The combination of secondary sources—monitored systematically—provides a comprehensive intelligence picture that would require enormous primary research effort to replicate.
How to Build a Secondary Research Program
Map the secondary sources most relevant to your competitors and category: (1) Websites—product pages, pricing, blog, job postings; (2) Review sites—G2, Capterra, Trustpilot (track new reviews, rating trends, and competitor responses); (3) News—Google Alerts, PR Newswire, TechCrunch, trade publications; (4) Financial—SEC filings, earnings transcripts (for public companies); (5) Patent databases—USPTO, Google Patents; (6) Social media—LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Reddit communities in your space; (7) Analyst reports—purchase key reports annually. Use competitive intelligence platforms (Flares, Klue, Crayon) to automate monitoring and surface changes. Create a systematic review process: daily alerts review, weekly synthesis, monthly competitive brief. Archive sources with dates for trend tracking.
Concrete Examples
A SaaS company's CI team reviews competitor job postings weekly. When a competitor posts 15 roles in enterprise sales, they infer an upmarket move—they brief their enterprise team and create displacement campaigns targeting the competitor's SMB customers who may be deprioritized. A fintech company tracks competitor G2 reviews and identifies a recurring complaint about slow customer support response times—they include their industry-leading SLA in competitive materials and sales scripts. A B2B vendor reads a competitor's earnings call transcript and discovers the CEO mentioning 'challenges in the mid-market segment'—the CI team immediately creates a targeted campaign with migration offers for the competitor's mid-market customers.
Turn competitive intelligence into actions
Flares monitors competitors 24/7 and delivers weekly digests so you never miss a move.
Discover Flares14-day free trial · 30-second setup