Here's a truth:  At BzzAgent, the word-of-mouth marketing firm where I'm CEO, I go to ridiculous extremes to obtain information about our competitors.

I scan Crunchbase, study websites, and download mobile apps. I troll shamelessly for gossip about our rivals' executive teams and star players.  And occasionally—when I'm really on my game—I hit pay dirt and obtain a competitor's proposal to a client. And when that happens, our team goes to work.  We dissect it for valuable bits of information about our opponents' pricing models, positioning, and capabilities.  And it's this information that allows us to accelerate our innovation, understand where our competitors are strong—and determine how we can exploit their weaknesses...