What Does a Competitive Enablement Manager Do? Competitive Intelligence Job Description Template

Ben Ronald

Finding a competitive intelligence job description is harder than you think.

Newish disciplines like competitive intelligence and competitive enablement take time to take shape and solidify. Job descriptions related to those disciplines are no different.

So when Klue hired its first competitive enablement manager, we decided to make that job description public.

Here’s a look at the five main pillars that competitive enablement managers should own.

Competitive Enablement

And the award for most redundant header goes to…this one!

Yes, a Competitive Enablement Manager’s main area of ownership is competitive enablement.

Unlike what you may see in a competitive intelligence analyst job description, a competitive enablement manager needs to go well beyond intel collection.

Manage competitive enablement materials

In collaboration with the content marketing and product marketing teams, a competitive enablement manager owns the creation of collateral that helps your team win more deals.

These are digestible, well-sourced, and actionable materials that speak to specific pain points, messaging, or use cases.

Bonus points when you embed these materials in battlecards!

Lead enablement sessions with customer-facing teams

Even the best enablement materials can’t match the value of live enablement sessions.

The dialogue that surfaces from these sessions let your end-users ask the tough questions and give their feedback on how well they feel they’re being enabled.

What’s more, these sessions allow space for connection and relationship building.

Onboard new hires

Speaking of building relationships, engaging with new hires is the absolute best way to set the tone early.

Paint the picture of the competitive landscape in which you operate. And most importantly — how your company uses competitive intelligence and competitive enablement to compete.

Product enablement

Every successful compete program starts with enabling sales first.

But don’t wait too long to expand your reach into other teams — product being chief among them.

Lead GTM activities for product launches and releases

The positioning, messaging, branding of all GTM activities fall within your purview as a competitive enablement manager.

Through conversation with product teams, your job is to pull out the key points and disseminate them to your sales team.

Highlight product differentiation to enable CS

It’s not enough to blast out an email with a few bullet points about a new release to your clients.

As such, you need to enable your CSMs to deeply understand what’s great about new product features and how it helps them beat the competition.

Liaise with product management about customer and market feedback

You’re listening to customer pain points. You’re hearing what the market needs in terms of a competitive solution.

And that’s why part of your role as a competitive enablement manager is to ensure a tight feedback loop from end-users to the product team.

Then, in collaboration with product management, work to incorporate the feedback into future releases.

Revenue Enablement

The quickest and fastest way to prove your worth as a competitive enablement manager is by enabling more revenue.

That’s why you’ll need to work with the right teams to dive deep into how new offerings and strategies (free trials, variable pricing) impact the bottom line.

But your job isn’t done there. You need to measure your worth as well.

Competitive strategy

Put on your best football coach hat and develop a messaging/positioning playbook for sales and CS.

The right playbook will give your teams the tools they need to maximize win rate against the completion.

Maintain a competitive dashboard in CRM

Most competitive enablement managers find their most key performance metric to be competitive win rate.

Taking stock of where your win rate sits currently and then measuring changes over time serves as an important proxy for the performance of your competitive program.

Keep an eye on up-and-comers

Part of your tracking responsibilities is to keep on top of up-and-coming and adjacent competitors.

This part of your playbook probably won’t be as fleshed out as the one you’ve set aside for existing competitors.

But the better you get at staying on top of these competitors — and having a strategy in place to deposition them — the easier your job gets.

Deal support and customer onboarding

Get your hands dirty and hop on a call every once and a while.

Not only will this support your growing bona fides as a compete pro, some of the most valuable intel you’ll ever get emanates from being on calls directly with clients or prospects.

Support AEs in competitive evaluations

There is no better trump card in your organization’s deck than having the competitive enablement manager hop on a call in the midst of a competitive deal.

Naturally, you’ll aim to enable your AEs to handle those conversations themselves.

But bringing in an expert like yourself can help tilt the scale in your company’s favour.

Support CS with churn-risks

Your deal support should never be limited to prospects.

The same market and competitive insight you bring to a competitive deal can be just as valuable when dealing with a client on the verge of churning.

If you’re successful and do it enough, you might even add reducing churn rates to your list of KPIs.

Relationship-building, communication, intel analysis

No matter the competitive intelligence job description, every competitive enablement pro needs to be a master at:

• Building cross-functional relationships
• Effective communication and messaging
• Turning intel into winning insights

Getting a handle on all three makes you a very valuable employee. One that is suited for all kinds of competitive intelligence jobs.

And your organization will reap the benefits.

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