What happens when ethical competitive intelligence (CI) meets real-world pressure?

The deal is on the line. Sales needs an answer now. A request comes in that lives in an ethical gray area – and everyone’s looking to you to figure it out.

This is where your ethical CI practices are either reinforced or quietly undermined. Because guardrails only matter if they hold up when the stakes are high.

To work in practice, ethical CI has to be built into everyday operations – supported by the right tools, clear expectations, and shared accountability. In this article, I’m going to show you how to make that happen.

Making ethical CI a team sport

If you want your competitive intelligence program to stick – and stay ethical – gathering intel the right way isn’t enough. You also need to train your stakeholders to engage with it responsibly. 

Here are four tips to get you started.

1. Set expectations with sales

Sales is the primary consumer of CI, and they’re often under pressure to win at all costs, which can lead to questionable asks. That’s why you need to be explicit about what’s allowed and what’s out of bounds.

Train reps to bring clear business questions instead of open-ended requests for “anything you can find.” The goal is for sales to see you as a strategic enablement partner, not a shortcut to competitor gossip.

2. Share your CI charter with leadership

Executive buy-in matters. Don’t create a CI charter and let it live in a shared drive. Share it with leadership, include it in onboarding, and make it part of your operating model.

If executives don’t know the boundaries, they can unintentionally push past them – and that puts you in a difficult position. The more visible your charter is, the more support you’ll have when it’s time to enforce it.

3. Use real-life examples to teach ethical boundaries

Principles are helpful, but stories stick. When you’re doing competitive enablement, share real, anonymized examples of requests that crossed the line and how you handled them. For example: 

“A rep asked for a login to a competitor’s portal. We reframed the ask and gathered the intel the rep needed from public review sites.”

These stories normalize ethical decision-making and reinforce that protecting the company matters as much as winning deals.

4. Make ethical CI a shared responsibility

CI shouldn’t feel like a black box. Build a culture where sales, customer success, and support teams know how they can contribute responsibly.

Create a Slack or Teams channel and celebrate smart, ethical insights from the field. CI works best when it’s collaborative and disciplined. When it’s treated as a shared asset, the entire program gains credibility.

The CI request intake form

Here's a simple but powerful tactic for keeping your stakeholders on the straight and narrow: set up a competitive intelligence request intake form. Instead of fielding Slack messages, Teams messages, or hallway requests, route every CI ask through a structured system.

This can live in a Google Form, Monday.com, Airtable, Asana, or whatever project management tool you already use. It doesn’t need to be fancy, but it does need to be intentional.

At a minimum, your intake form should ask:

  • Who is making the request?
  • Which competitor are they focused on?
  • What type of intel are they looking for?
  • How will the intel be used?
  • Are there existing sources they can point to?

This structure does more than help you prioritize high-value requests. It creates a pause. When someone has to put an ask in writing, they’re more likely to reconsider if it crosses a line. That alone helps deter unethical requests and can highlight where additional enablement is needed.

With a lightweight intake process in place, you protect your team’s time while building a scalable, ethical CI engine the business can rely on.

Your ethical CI tech stack 

The right tools can help you gather and share competitive intelligence in ways that are transparent, traceable, and compliant.

Platforms like Crayon, Klue, and Kompyte let you centralize intel, track sources, and version battlecards – avoiding the chaos of scattered Google Docs and gut-driven guesses.

Tools like Gong and Chorus are also powerful for capturing voice-of-customer insights ethically and at scale. Listening to your own sales calls can often surface as much competitive insight as chasing external intel.

CRM integrations, such as Salesforce plugins, allow you to collect structured win/loss feedback at the deal level. That kind of consistent intake doesn’t just support competitive intelligence – it strengthens your broader go-to-market strategy.

The ethical CI decision tree

The biggest risks in competitive intelligence don’t come from malice – they come from speed. You’re moving fast, someone needs something urgent, and suddenly you’re operating in an ethical gray zone.

Use this decision tree as your quick check for what’s safe, ethical, and legal:

1. Was the source published publicly?

✅ If it’s on a website, in a press release, or in a public webinar, you’re good to go. Use it, document it, and move forward.

2. Do you need a login or to pretend to be a customer?

❌  Hard stop. If access requires impersonation or crossing an ethical boundary, don’t do it. This is where legal lines get crossed, and reputations get damaged. I've seen people lose their jobs because they made the wrong choice here.

3. Was it shared in a win/loss or customer interview?

🤔 If it was shared voluntarily and the customer isn’t under an NDA with a competitor, you’re generally okay – but check. If you’re not sure, escalate to your leader or your legal team.

4. Does it break any known NDAs or laws?

❌  Don’t touch it. Protected content isn’t just unethical – it’s a liability, even if someone else hands it to you.

5. Still unsure? 

🪜Escalate it. The goal isn’t to stop CI. It’s to do it responsibly. When in doubt, loop in your leader or legal.

This framework is designed to protect your team, your company, and your personal integrity. When something feels off, run the decision tree, trust your gut, and escalate before it escalates on you.

The bottom line

Ethical competitive intelligence doesn’t succeed on intention alone. It succeeds when it’s built into how your organization works – how requests come in, how insights are shared, and how people behave when the pressure is on.

Operationalizing ethical CI is about making the right choices repeatable. Clear expectations with sales. Visible leadership alignment. Practical tools that create pause, clarity, and consistency. Systems that protect your team while still enabling speed.

When ethical CI is embedded into your processes, you don’t just respond faster – you respond with confidence.

This article is based on Lanie Schenkelberg’s brilliant talk at the Competitive Intelligence Summit, 2025.