company-intel — Deep Intelligence Research Skill for Companies, Industries, and Competitors

Skill Overview

company-intel is a deep research skill designed for product managers and strategy teams. Given a company, an industry, or a group of competitors, it uses real-time web searches (rather than model memory) to produce a structured competitive intelligence report with source citations across seven analytical perspectives. The report can be handed directly to downstream skills for war cards, SWOT analysis, positioning statements, PESTEL analysis, market sizing, and more. It is not an encyclopedia-style overview, but a research primitive: every section moves beyond facts to examine tensions, trade-offs, and implications for product management. A complete research cycle typically takes 30–60 minutes.

Applicable Scenarios

1. Background research before customer meetings or workshops — Quickly build a structured understanding of a target company or industry before customer meetings, presales proposals, or training workshops. It searches financial reports, product pages, patents, job postings, and executive changes, helping you see not just what the company says on its website, but what it is actually doing.
2. Side-by-side comparison of 3–5 competitors — Specify a group of competitors (for example, “compare Companies A, B, and C”). The skill produces a complete research report for each company, then adds a cross-company comparison chapter covering differences in strategic bets, areas of convergence, unmet customer needs, and the distinct challenges facing each company’s product managers.
3. Quarterly intelligence refreshes — Rerun incremental analysis for previously researched companies using delta mode. The latest executive statements, patent activity, and hiring changes are presented in a “Then/Now” format. A dedicated “Language No Longer Used” section highlights projects executives have stopped emphasizing—often the strongest implicit signal.

Core Features

1. Panoramic scan across seven analytical perspectives — Financial landscape and business outcomes; market supply and business model; product portfolio; competitive dynamics; trends and strategic concerns; product management organization and culture; and strategic signals (patents, hiring, and executive changes). Each perspective must progress from “what it is” to “what this means for product decisions,” while distinguishing among facts, inferences, and assumptions by confidence level.
2. Four entry points, including automatic competitor discovery — Supports three direct entry points: a single company (with an optional domain), an industry or market segment, and a specified competitor group. It also supports entering only “company name + competitors.” The skill first conducts lightweight research on the company, automatically identifies 3–5 candidate competitors, and explains whether each is a direct, adjacent, substitute, or emerging disruptive competitor. After your confirmation, it runs the full comparison.
3. Structured output and downstream skill integration — The output follows a stable format with 11 fixed chapters (12 chapters for competitor groups). Every key point includes a source and date, and areas with weak data are explicitly identified rather than padded with vague language. By chapter, the output can be directly fed into war cards (Chapters 4, 5, 7, 9, and 12), SWOT analysis (Chapters 2, 6, 7, 8, and 9), positioning statements, PESTEL analysis, TAM/SAM/SOM analysis, and other skills.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is company-intel different from simply using a search engine to research a company?

A normal search answers “What does this company do?” company-intel answers “What does this mean for product decisions?” There are three key differences. First, it requires coverage of all seven perspectives, including patents, hiring, and executive changes—honest signals of what the company is actually doing, rather than just press releases and website messaging. Second, every fact is labeled with its source, date, and confidence level, and inferences explicitly state their supporting evidence. Third, the output follows a fixed structure that can be directly consumed by other analytical skills, rather than being an article that becomes difficult to reuse once read.

How reliable are company-intel’s information sources?

Sources are prioritized in tiers: primary sources (financial reports, earnings calls, and regulatory filings) → credible secondary sources (major business media and industry analysts) → community sources (such as Glassdoor and other review sites, which have lower confidence but are often among the earliest honest signals) → inferred signals (such as job postings). The final chapter consolidates all sources, labels assumptions and inferences, and identifies sections with thin data. The skill favors materials from the past 12–24 months; anything older than 18 months is explicitly marked.

Who is company-intel suitable for, and what are its limitations?

It is suitable for product managers, market and competitive intelligence analysts, strategy consultants, and B2B sales teams that need to prepare before engaging with customers. Its boundaries should be clear: it produces structured research material, not a final deliverable, and it is not a valuation or stock-picking financial analysis. The quality of its conclusions is limited by the availability of public information. Data on private companies and niche market segments may be thin, and the report will state this candidly.