Every competitive intelligence leader has heard some version of the same advice: get closer to stakeholders, prove your value, earn a seat at the table. It’s not wrong, but it’s also not specific enough to act on. Increasing the strategic impact of competitive intelligence requires knowing which behaviors actually move the needle, not just which ones feel productive.
Sedulo Group’s 2026 Life Sciences Competitive Intelligence Survey Report set out to answer that question directly. Rather than asking competitive intelligence leaders what they believe drives impact, the survey’s correlation analysis identifies what the data actually shows moves three concrete outcomes: reaching senior leadership, influencing strategic planning, and earning stakeholder satisfaction. Some of the findings confirm conventional wisdom. Others contradict it in ways worth paying attention to.
This matters because the industry’s own confidence in competitive intelligence is rising. The share of respondents reporting that competitive intelligence plays a “critical and consistent role” in strategic planning climbed from 41% in 2025 to 46.1% in 2026. That’s real progress. But it also means the gap between competitive intelligence functions that have earned that influence and those still working toward it is becoming more visible. This post breaks down exactly what the data says separates the two.
Competitive Intelligence Stakeholder Engagement Is the Strongest Lever
If there is one finding competitive intelligence leaders should take away from this year’s survey, it’s this: how often you engage stakeholders predicts more than almost anything else measured.
Combined daily-or-weekly stakeholder engagement is the single strongest predictor of both stakeholder satisfaction and strategic influence found anywhere in the survey. Competitive intelligence functions engaging stakeholders daily or weekly make up nearly three-quarters of the most satisfied group, compared to just one-fifth of everyone else. That is not a marginal difference. It is the clearest signal in the entire dataset.
This finding also reframes what “ad hoc” engagement actually costs a competitive intelligence function. Ad hoc or as-needed stakeholder engagement is the single worst state for strategic influence in this dataset, correlating with dramatically lower influence than any structured, regular cadence. Regular, structured touchpoints, even brief ones, appear to matter more than the size or polish of any individual deliverable.
For competitive intelligence leaders without a formal stakeholder engagement cadence, this is the most actionable finding in the report. Moving from ad hoc contact to a weekly or biweekly structured touchpoint is a low-cost change with a strong correlation to both satisfaction and influence.
How to Get Executive Buy-In: What Gets Competitive Intelligence to Senior Leadership
The survey asked where competitive intelligence input most typically reaches decision-makers. Currently, 35.7% of respondents say their input reaches the senior leadership level, and another 11.6% say it reaches the board or C-suite. Combined with the 32.6% reaching Director or VP level, competitive intelligence’s influence in life sciences concentrates at a healthy altitude industry-wide.
But what predicts whether a given competitive intelligence function reaches that level, and what should inform your strategy for how to get executive buy-in? The data points to four factors.
Impact measurement. Competitive intelligence functions that link insights directly to business outcomes are far more likely to reach senior leadership than those relying primarily on stakeholder feedback to measure their own impact. Feedback tells you whether stakeholders liked your work. Linking insights to outcomes tells you whether your work changed a decision.
AI maturity. Competitive intelligence functions using AI in defined, repeatable workflows, what the survey classifies as “Applied” usage, are more than twice as likely to reach senior leadership as those still in early, exploratory stages. This is the strongest single predictor of senior leadership reach found anywhere in the survey. (For the full picture on AI maturity across the industry, see Sedulo Group’s analysis of AI in life sciences competitive intelligence.)
Structure. A hybrid structure, blending standalone and embedded elements, correlates more strongly with reaching senior leadership than either a fully standalone or fully embedded model alone. This tracks with a broader trend: hybrid competitive intelligence structures grew from just 22% of the industry in 2025 to 31.1% in 2026.
Scientific and commercial balance. Competitive intelligence functions leaning more commercial in focus are more likely to reach senior leadership than those describing themselves as roughly balanced between scientific and commercial work.
Two factors that might seem obvious turned out not to move the needle on reaching senior leadership at all. Whether leadership understands competitive intelligence’s value shows little relationship with whether competitive intelligence actually reaches that leadership. And a push-oriented delivery model shows only a modest edge, well short of the strong lever that proactive visibility is often assumed to be.
What Drives Competitive Intelligence’s Strategic Influence on Planning
Reaching senior leadership and actually shaping strategic planning are related but distinct outcomes, and the data on what drives competitive intelligence’s strategic influence tells a slightly different story.
Leadership understanding shows the strongest relationship with strategic influence of any factor analyzed in this part of the survey. Competitive intelligence functions where leadership has a strong understanding of the function’s full value are far more likely to carry critical, consistent influence over planning. This is notable given the finding above: leadership understanding doesn’t predict whether competitive intelligence reaches senior leadership, but it strongly predicts what happens once it gets there.
AI maturity matters here too, but with an important nuance. It’s specifically competitive intelligence functions actively scaling AI, not just experimenting with it, that show the strongest correlation with strategic influence.
Reporting line also plays a role. Competitive intelligence functions reporting directly to senior leadership are notably more likely to carry critical, consistent strategic influence than those housed within Marketing, Strategy, or other departments. Currently, 28.1% of competitive intelligence functions report directly to senior leadership, while 40.7% sit within Marketing or Commercial.
Vendor engagement timing rounds out the strongest predictors. Engaging vendors as early as Phase 1 correlates with stronger strategic influence.
On the other side, two commonly assumed drivers didn’t hold up. Ad hoc stakeholder engagement, as covered above, is the single worst state for strategic influence in the entire dataset. And competitive intelligence functions with no active measurement of their own impact show only modestly lower strategic influence than those who do measure it, reinforcing that even basic measurement matters, but the method used matters less than the discipline of measuring at all.
Measuring Competitive Intelligence Impact: What Drives Stakeholder Satisfaction
Stakeholder satisfaction is a related but separate outcome from strategic influence, and it has its own distinct set of drivers. Combined satisfaction across the industry sits at 73.5%, essentially flat versus 2025, with almost no active dissatisfaction reported.
Engagement frequency, again, is the strongest predictor tested for satisfaction, exactly as it was for strategic influence. If you invest in one change this year, a consistent stakeholder engagement cadence is the one with the broadest payoff across the board.
Scientific and commercial balance shows up differently here than it did for senior leadership reach. Competitive intelligence functions describing their remit as roughly balanced between scientific and commercial work show meaningfully higher stakeholder satisfaction than those leaning heavily toward either specialization. This creates a genuine tension worth naming: leaning commercial may help you get in the room, but breadth of remit appears to matter more once you’re serving a broader stakeholder base day to day.
Impact measurement matters more here than it did for strategic influence. Competitive intelligence functions with no active measurement of their own impact show dramatically lower stakeholder satisfaction, suggesting that measuring impact at all matters more than which specific method is used.
Reporting line shows a different pattern than it did for strategic influence. Competitive intelligence functions reporting into Marketing or Commercial show notably higher stakeholder satisfaction than those reporting elsewhere.
Two factors that didn’t move satisfaction are worth flagging. Push versus pull delivery model shows the weakest relationship with stakeholder satisfaction of any lever tested. And organizations not using AI at all in competitive intelligence workflows show the sharpest satisfaction penalty found anywhere in this analysis.
Turning This Into a Plan for Increasing Competitive Intelligence’s Strategic Impact
The 2026 data points to a consistent story across all three outcomes measured. Reaching senior leadership, influencing strategic planning, and earning stakeholder satisfaction are each driven by a distinct but overlapping mix of engagement frequency, impact measurement, AI maturity, and structural choices around reporting lines and remit.
If you’re building a case for your competitive intelligence function’s next strategic move, the full 2026 Life Sciences Competitive Intelligence Survey Report includes the complete correlation analysis behind every finding in this post, along with year-over-year trend data back to 2024.
Download the 2026 Life Sciences Survey Report
Get the full dataset, cross-segment analysis, and actionable recommendations for strengthening CI’s influence across your organization.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the single biggest driver of competitive intelligence's strategic impact?
Stakeholder engagement frequency. Competitive intelligence functions engaging stakeholders daily or weekly make up nearly three-quarters of the most satisfied stakeholder group, and this is the strongest predictor of both stakeholder satisfaction and strategic influence found in the 2026 survey.
How do you get executive buy-in for competitive intelligence?
The data points to four factors: linking insights directly to business outcomes rather than relying on feedback alone, using AI in mature, repeatable workflows, adopting a hybrid organizational structure, and leaning more commercial in remit. Functions using AI in defined workflows are more than twice as likely to reach senior leadership as those still experimenting.
Does leadership understanding of competitive intelligence matter?
Yes, but for a specific outcome. Leadership understanding doesn’t predict whether competitive intelligence reaches senior leadership, but it is the strongest predictor of whether competitive intelligence carries real influence over strategic planning once it’s in the room. Only 37.5% of competitive intelligence professionals believe leadership truly understands the function’s full value.
What's the biggest barrier to stakeholder engagement in competitive intelligence?
Competing priorities and limited stakeholder time, cited by 65.6% of respondents, more than five times any other reason. Misunderstanding of competitive intelligence’s value is a much smaller factor, at just 11.7%.
Does how competitive intelligence delivers insights (push vs. pull) affect stakeholder satisfaction?
Not much. Delivery model shows the weakest relationship with stakeholder satisfaction of any factor tested. How often and how well insights are understood matters far more than the delivery mechanism itself.
Should competitive intelligence report to Marketing or directly to senior leadership?
It depends on the outcome you’re optimizing for. Functions reporting into Marketing or Commercial show higher stakeholder satisfaction, while functions reporting directly to senior leadership are more likely to carry consistent strategic influence over planning. The two reporting lines trade off differently.