Do I need a background in business strategy to take this course?

No. This course is designed for beginners and provides comprehensive, step-by-step guidance in competitive intelligence techniques.

What practical skills will I gain from this course?

You'll learn to retrieve public documents, analyze competitor strategies, forecast market trends, and create actionable intelligence briefs that stakeholders can use.

How will these skills apply to real-world business scenarios?

The course teaches techniques used across industries to understand market dynamics, assess competitive threats, and identify strategic opportunities.

When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?

To access the course materials, assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience when you enroll in a course. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid. The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.

What will I get if I subscribe to this Certificate?

When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Certificate, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile.

Competitive Intel, Trends and Data Sourcing

This course is part of Market Research Analyst: AI, Power BI, SurveyMonkey skilled Professional Certificate

Instructor: Professionals from the Industry

Included with

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5 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

Beginner level

Recommended experience

1 week to complete

at 10 hours a week

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

5 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

Beginner level

Recommended experience

1 week to complete

at 10 hours a week

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

What you'll learn

Apply Porter's Five Forces to evaluate industry competitiveness and identify gaps in product features against competitors.
Use sentiment analysis to track competitor communication shifts and develop advanced search techniques for critical information retrieval.
Create risk-scoring matrices for strategic decision-making to enhance understanding of potential challenges and threats.
Evaluate and prioritize market trends using systematic scoring to better inform future business strategies and initiatives.

Details to know

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Build your Business Strategy expertise

This course is part of the Market Research Analyst: AI, Power BI, SurveyMonkey skilled Professional Certificate

When you enroll in this course, you'll also be enrolled in this Professional Certificate.

Learn new concepts from industry experts
Gain a foundational understanding of a subject or tool
Develop job-relevant skills with hands-on projects
Earn a shareable career certificate from Coursera

There are 5 modules in this course

You will learn practical approaches to rapidly assemble credible competitive intelligence and to forecast market change in ways stakeholders can act on. This course takes you through classic and adapted frameworks—such as Porter's Five Forces, feature-gap analyses, and risk-scoring matrices—along with pragmatic workflows for evidence discovery and verification. You'll practice advanced search operators, source prioritization based on a credibility hierarchy, and structured note-taking so that public filings, product specs, and earnings transcripts become usable intelligence.

The curriculum emphasizes sophisticated methods for quantifying competitor moves, scoring their likely impacts, and visualizing market positioning with clear heatmaps and comparison charts. You will master the art of "Source Auditing" to ensure every forecast is backed by high-quality data. By completing short, time-boxed intelligence briefs and presentations, you'll build the habit of delivering concise, prioritized recommendations that product and strategy teams can operationalize while preserving full auditability of sources and assumptions. This course transforms you into a proactive analyst who can identify emerging marketing shifts and assess their potential implications. You will conclude the module by producing a comprehensive Market Intelligence Brief, a portfolio-ready document that demonstrates your ability to turn raw noise into a competitive advantage. Who this is for: Aspiring market researchers, business strategists, product managers, and professionals looking to develop competitive intelligence skills with no prior experience required.

Module details

This module provides a powerful framework for turning business data into a competitive advantage. You will learn to use Porter's Five Forces to analyze an industry's competitive structure and identify key pressures affecting profitability. The module then teaches you to master feature gap analysis, systematically comparing your products against competitors to uncover strengths, weaknesses, and innovation opportunities. Through hands-on labs and real-world scenarios, you will learn to connect high-level industry forces to specific product features, ensuring that your competitive insights translate into actionable strategic decisions and give your organization a distinct market advantage.

What's included

4 videos2 readings4 assignments

4 videosTotal 24 minutes

The Hidden Forces in the Ride-Sharing War5 minutes
How to Analyze the Ride-Sharing Industry?7 minutes
The Feature Race in Streaming Services5 minutes
Analyzing the Smartphone AI War7 minutes

2 readingsTotal 16 minutes

Deconstructing the Five Forces8 minutes
Anatomy of a Competitive Grid8 minutes

4 assignmentsTotal 80 minutes

Competitive Strategy Brief30 minutes
Hands-On Learning: Analyze Your Industry's Competitive Landscape: Identifying Strategic Gaps Using Porter's Five Forces20 minutes
Knowledge Check: The Five Forces10 minutes
Hands-On Learning: Create a Feature Gap Analysis Grid20 minutes

This module is designed for professionals and analysts looking to transform market data into strategic foresight. You will learn to master two core analytical techniques. First, you will learn to conduct sentiment analysis on corporate communications, such as earnings calls and press releases, to detect shifts in a competitor's strategy. Next, you will apply a customized Porter's Five Forces framework to evaluate competitive intensity and industry attractiveness. Using real-world case studies from the airline, EV, and ride-sharing industries, you will build a comprehensive market assessment and provide data-driven recommendations that inform high-level strategic decisions, making you an invaluable asset in any business.

What's included

4 videos2 readings4 assignments

4 videosTotal 26 minutes

The Hidden Signals in Competitor Communications7 minutes
How to Track and Visualize Sentiment Over Time?6 minutes
Why is a Framework Crucial for Strategy?5 minutes
How to Customize and Apply the Five Forces Framework?9 minutes

2 readingsTotal 20 minutes

What is Sentiment Analysis and Why Does it Matter?10 minutes
Deconstructing Porter's Five Forces10 minutes

4 assignmentsTotal 65 minutes

Market and Industry Assessment Report30 minutes
Hands-On Learning: Analyzing Sentiment in Quarterly Earnings Calls15 minutes
Knowledge Check: Sentiment Analysis Concepts5 minutes
Hands-On Learning: Assessing the Competitive Threat in the EV Industry15 minutes

This module develops essential market forecasting and trend analysis skills for research professionals. You will learn to master techniques for analyzing historical data to predict future demand and evaluate the strategic relevance of emerging trends. Through practical application with time-series data, you will build the predictive capabilities needed to support forward-looking business decisions, identify new opportunities, and drive sustainable growth.

What's included

4 videos2 readings3 assignments

4 videosTotal 18 minutes

What is Time-Series Forecasting?5 minutes
How to Apply Exponential Smoothing in a Spreadsheet?4 minutes
Separating Hype from High-Impact Trends5 minutes
How to Implement a Trend Scoring Template4 minutes

2 readingsTotal 15 minutes

The Power of Exponential Smoothing7 minutes
Building a Strategic Scoring Model8 minutes

3 assignmentsTotal 50 minutes

Market Opportunity Analysis Report30 minutes
Hands-On Learning: Your First Demand Forecast15 minutes
Knowledge Check: Interpreting Your Forecast5 minutes

This module is designed for analysts, researchers, and professionals seeking to build arguments on trustworthy evidence. You will move beyond basic keyword searching to become an advanced researcher, learning a systematic framework to evaluate information for credibility, authority, bias, and accuracy. You will also master advanced search operators like site:, filetype:, and intitle: to enhance your search precision. Through hands-on exercises, you'll create complex queries to find specific corporate reports and technical documents, developing the critical judgment needed to evaluate information reliability and improve your analysis and decision-making.

What's included

4 videos4 readings4 assignments

4 videosTotal 22 minutes

The Cost of Bad Information: From Theranos to Today6 minutes
Applying the Framework: Vetting a News Article vs. a Scientific Paper6 minutes
From Hours to Minutes: The Power of Precision Search6 minutes
Finding the Needle: Locating a 2023 Annual Report5 minutes

4 readingsTotal 45 minutes

Deconstructing Credibility: From the Information Hierarchy to the CRAAP Test16 minutes
Information Literacy for Career Advancement10 minutes
The Search Operator's Toolkit10 minutes
Strategic Searching for Competitive Intelligence9 minutes

4 assignmentsTotal 75 minutes

The Market Research Initiation Kit30 minutes
Hands-On Learning: Rank the Sources20 minutes
Knowledge Check: Credibility Concepts Check5 minutes
Hands-On Learning: The Document Hunt20 minutes

In this culminating project, you will assume the role of a market intelligence analyst tasked with delivering a comprehensive competitive market assessment. This project challenges you to synthesize the core skills from this program to transform diverse market signals into actionable intelligence that drives product strategy. You will conduct a detailed feature-gap analysis, apply an adapted Porter's Five Forces framework to evaluate strategic risks, and produce a quantitative demand forecast. The final deliverable is a professional-grade market intelligence brief, complete with data visualizations and an executive summary designed for stakeholder review. By completing this project, you will create a valuable portfolio asset that demonstrates your ability to translate complex market data into clear, persuasive, and actionable strategic recommendations.