Playbooks: how to apply it

Playbook: keep track of your market and competitors

For business owners who hear from a customer that a competitor won a contract, or who are too late for a grant. Five steps to a fixed routine of one hour a week that tracks what happens in your market.

Sound familiar?

You find out afterwards that a competitor landed a big contract.
A grant you qualified for closed last week.
A new rule already applies, and you are only reading about it now.
A customer or supplier goes bankrupt and you are the last to hear.

Step 1. Write down who you follow

List five to ten competitors, your largest customers and your key suppliers, with their Chamber of Commerce numbers. Keep those groups separate. A supplier is not a competitor, and news about them calls for a different action.

Step 2. Pick the sources that matter

Most of what you need to know is in public registers. For the Netherlands:

TenderNed for public tenders in your field.
Officiële bekendmakingen for permits and decisions in your region.
The Central Insolvency Register for bankruptcies of customers and suppliers.
Court rulings on rechtspraak.nl that mention your competitors.
RVO for grants with a closing date.

Step 3. Put everything with a date in one list

A finding is only useful with a date attached: closes on, applies from, hearing on. Put each finding in one list with that date, sorted by what expires first. Anything without a date and without consequences for you, you leave out.

Step 4. Make it a fixed hour

Pick a fixed moment each week, for example Monday morning. Go through the list and decide for each line: act, pass on, or let it go. Without a fixed moment the list just sits there.

Step 5. Automate what keeps coming back

After a few weeks you will see which searches you repeat. Those can run on their own, with a weekly summary in your inbox. Check every automatic alert yourself for the first weeks. A system that mistakes a supplier for a competitor teaches you the wrong lesson. We know that error from our own product and are fixing it.

What it costs

Doing it yourself takes an hour a week, plus an afternoon to set up the list and the searches. ConcurrentieRadar does steps 2 to 5 for you. The first scan of your own market is free.

How we do it ourselves

ConcurrentieRadar is our own product. It reads official registers, tenders, court rulings and competitor websites, and reports what has a date and a consequence. We also use it for our own products.

Frequently asked questions

Isn't this just Google Alerts?

Google Alerts searches news and web pages. Tenders, bankruptcies and official notices are in registers, and it does not find those.

Am I allowed to follow competitors like this?

Yes. Every source in this playbook is public.

Read on

Playbook: let AI answer your phone Playbook: stop retyping data between your systems

In this series

Playbook: let AI answer your phone Playbook: use AI without giving away your data Playbook: stop retyping data between your systems Playbook: connect your AI assistant safely with MCP Playbook: edge AI next to your existing PLC Playbook: get the basics of your security in order Playbook: getting your team to use AI All knowledge

Sources

Our approach

From advice to management, with one partner

The same rhythm for every project.

Advice

We start with a conversation, not with code. First clarity on what you need and what you do not.

Build

We build and integrate to measure, with technology that fits you. You own your data and your code.

Manage

We stay involved: monitoring, adjusting and growing with your business.

See what is happening in your market

Call us and we will run the radar on your market once.

Call 085 083 5775

A 30-minute intake