Keep reading to discover how retail and restaurant CFOs
Use Competitive Sales Intelligence to Drive Growth and Outperform Their Category
In today’s fiercely competitive retail and restaurant landscape, CFOs are no longer simply financial stewards.
They’ve evolved into strategic business partners—tasked with navigating financial complexity, identifying growth opportunities, and providing the kind of agile, data-backed analysis needed to drive lasting competitive advantage.
The challenge? Despite the sophistication of internal dashboards and BI systems, most CFOs still operate in the dark when it comes to the outside world.
- They can’t assess performance relative to named competitors.
- They don’t know which stores are underperforming versus their local category.
- They can’t spot fast-growing challenger brands before they’ve lost share.
- And they can’t see where customers are drifting to or from.
This guide illuminates how CFOs and their finance teams are closing this gap using competitive sales intelligence. By integrating real-time consumer transaction data into their workflows, finance leaders are benchmarking more accurately, forecasting with greater precision, planning new store investments more strategically, and protecting loyalty more effectively.
It’s not about working harder. It’s about seeing the field—and playing to win.
Competitive Sales Intelligence: A CFO’s Blind Spot
The foundation of this competitive advantage is a powerful data asset known as consumer transaction data, derived from large volumes of real, anonymized debit and credit card purchases logged by financial institutions and fintech platforms. This data is a treasure trove of insights into shopper behavior, brand switching, retail trends, and, most importantly to CFOs, competitive sales intelligence.
Without this data, finance leaders are often left flying blind:
- They can’t assess performance against competitors at the local level
- They can’t see daypart trends or pinpoint why a store’s traffic is down
- They can’t respond quickly enough to fast-moving disruptors
- They can’t objectively evaluate the true impact of their own promotions
Competitive Sales Intelligence: A CFO’s Blind Spot
The foundation of this competitive advantage is a powerful data asset known as consumer transaction data, derived from large volumes of real, anonymized debit and credit card purchases logged by financial institutions and fintech platforms. This data is a treasure trove of insights into shopper behavior, brand switching, retail trends, and, most importantly to CFOs, competitive sales intelligence.
When extracted and operationalized correctly, this data enables finance teams to:
- Benchmark company performance against competitors at the local market level
- Detect loyalty erosion and customer defection early
- Sharpen forecasting with weekly competitive comp data
- Validate store expansion strategies with true transaction momentum
- Collaborate cross-functionally with marketing, operations, and site selection teams
Without this data, finance leaders are often left flying blind:
- They can’t assess performance against competitors at the local level
- They can’t see daypart trends or pinpoint why a store’s traffic is down
- They can’t respond quickly enough to fast-moving disruptors
- They can’t objectively evaluate the true impact of their own promotions
How Leading CFOs Are Using Competitive Spend Data
Across the industry, forward-thinking CFOs are embedding competitive sales intelligence into their workflows to enhance financial strategy and operational agility.
Here’s how:
1. Benchmark Company and Store Performance
Benchmarking only makes sense when you know what else is happening around you.
- Objectively benchmark store performance in every market
- Rank locations by relative performance versus local competitors
- Identify underperforming regions that internal data alone would miss
Doug Scovanner, former CFO of Target, once noted,
“The absence of context is the death of insight.”
Most CFOs can easily cite internal sales growth figures. But what happens when that 5% growth is actually underperforming relative to a category growing at 9%? Without the external context, high-performing stores may be mistaken for average and struggling markets may go unnoticed. Competitive sales intelligence provides the clarity needed to assess true performance.
2. Track Competitors and Market Share
Markets move quickly—and so do consumers. CFOs use this data to go beyond brand anecdotes or survey-based approximations and directly observe how customer traffic, spend, and market share are shifting by competitor. This isn’t just for market leaders—emerging challengers often show up first in the data.
- Monitor market share, ticket size, and growth rate by competitor
- Detect early signs of disruption in key geographies
- Map brand momentum over time and across channels
When Popeyes launched its chicken sandwich in 2019, it was competitive sales data—not survey results—that first captured its massive market share swing against incumbents.
3. Improve Budgeting and Forecasting
Most FP&A processes rely on last year’s performance plus a percent increase, sprinkled with executive intuition. This model crumbles when consumer behavior diverges sharply by region or category. CFOs armed with competitive comps are now building forecasts that reflect actual external market dynamics.
- Adjust projections based on weekly category comps
- Model budgets that reflect real external growth pressures
- Improve accuracy in volatile or fast-changing markets
Finance leaders at franchise-heavy companies are especially attuned to this. With each location’s performance varying by competitive density, having real-time comps is the difference between useful forecasts and executive rework.
4. Optimize New Store Planning
New locations represent massive capital outlays. And yet, many real estate decisions are still based on broad or stale U.S. census-based demographic data. With transaction intelligence, CFOs can take the guesswork out by identifying corridors with actual sales momentum and avoiding areas that are cannibalized or saturated.
- Identify trade areas with strong consumer demand
- Avoid cannibalization by mapping nearby spend patterns
- Validate market entry or retreat decisions using real-time data
This is especially powerful for restaurant chains where AUVs are sensitive to unique buyer cohorts and foot traffic patterns. As one finance leader at a major QSR said,
“Our last three site approvals were greenlit because of external spend data, not because of a site visit.”
5. Re-establish Customer Loyalty
Consumers are more fluid than ever, and loyalty isn’t guaranteed. CFOs are now leaning on spend data to identify not just the customers they’re winning—but the ones they’re losing. Cross-shopping and brand-switching behaviors can be tracked and responded to in near real-time.
- Understand when and where shoppers defect to competitors
- Identify high-value shoppers not enrolled in loyalty programs
- Support marketing with targeted incentives to win back or retain shoppers
This isn’t just a marketing exercise. When finance can model lost revenue tied to churned high-frequency buyers, it becomes a strategic imperative to act.
6. Support Marketing with Real-Time Feedback
Marketing is often one of the largest line items on a retail or restaurant P&L—and one of the hardest to tie to outcomes. Competitive sales data enables CFOs to close the attribution loop by evaluating results across trips, AOV, and competitor movement.
- Evaluate campaign impact using AOV and trip frequency shifts
- Compare results to competitor behavior during the same window
- Support go/no-go decisions on campaign extensions or rollouts
A CMO may say a campaign worked. A CFO armed with competitive data can prove it—and decide whether to double down or shift strategy. As finance becomes more integrated with marketing performance, this data becomes the shared language of impact.
These use cases align with real questions finance leaders are asking every day:
- Where am I winning or losing share?
- Did my promotion drive growth—or just shift timing?
- Who are my new challenger brands?
- How much did my new store cannibalize versus take from competitors?
- Which markets are saturated or primed for expansion?
From Data to Decisions:
How Leading Finance Teams Operationalize Competitive Insights
Integrating competitive sales data into financial decision-making isn’t a one-click process—but it doesn’t need to be overwhelming. Leading CFOs and their finance teams adopt a phased, practical approach to incorporating these insights into the organization.
Crawl
Start small. Choose a few high-priority markets or top competitors and run a pilot. Benchmark performance. Validate assumptions. Use early insights to build confidence and set the baseline for broader rollout.
Walk
Expand to broader regions and a larger competitive set. Integrate weekly data feeds into existing BI tools—like Tableau, Power BI, or Excel—so teams can run analysis inside familiar platforms. Begin layering insights into budget planning, forecasting models, and executive reports.
Run
Operationalize competitive intelligence as a core capability. Feed insights directly into weekly ops reviews, marketing planning cycles, and real estate decision-making. Connect finance, marketing, and operations around shared KPIs informed by external benchmarks.
Key integration best practices include:
- Clean delivery mechanisms: Use secure APIs or flat-file feeds for efficient ingestion into your BI environment.
- Metadata standardization: Ensure competitive merchant data is mapped accurately using consistent location and categorization fields (e.g., ZIP+4, MCC, latitude/longitude).
- Cadence clarity: Decide how frequently data should refresh—many teams opt for weekly to balance granularity with stability.
- Governed rollout: Avoid overwhelming the org with unfiltered data. Use a staged approach to training, distribution, and insight sharing.
- Playbook development: Equip internal teams with guidance on how to interpret and act on competitive data. Prevent knee-jerk reactions and encourage measured, strategic use of insights.
As one finance executive noted during implementation:
“The first thing we did was build a response playbook. Data doesn’t drive action—alignment does.”
By treating competitive intelligence as an ongoing capability—not a one-time install—finance teams set themselves up for lasting impact.
What CFOs Are Seeing in the Data
CFOs who have embraced competitive sales intelligence are reporting:
+10–15% improvement
+10–15% improvement in forecast accuracy at the regional level
+18% increase
+18% increase in loyalty program signups by targeting frequent non-members
20–30% faster
20–30% faster time-to-profitability for new store openings
12% uplift
12% uplift in underperforming franchise revenue after localized benchmarking
“We caught a market share dip four weeks before our internal metrics reflected it. That early signal allowed us to redirect marketing spend and protect Q3 performance.”
Conclusion
The modern CFO’s evolution into a Chief Value Officer is powered by the strategic application of consumer spend data. With access to timely, localized insights, finance teams are no longer confined to internal figures—they are gaining the outside-in perspective needed to benchmark smarter, forecast sharper, and compete harder.
This shift is more than tactical—it’s transformative. CFOs are now shaping go-to-market plans, accelerating digital transformation, and advising CEOs on competitive risk—all using intelligence that extends beyond their four walls. What used to be retrospective reporting has become real-time market guidance.
As McDonald’s CFO Ian Borden said,
“We’re using data and technology not just to automate but to elevate decision-making.”
That’s the new standard.
The finance function has become the connective tissue between departments—informing marketing strategy, validating store placements, and identifying revenue recovery opportunities. And competitive sales intelligence is the language that connects them all.
In short, CFOs aren’t just navigating the business. They’re driving it forward—with clarity, confidence, and precision.
Facteus helps finance teams move faster, see clearer, and act smarter.
About this guide
In 2024-25, Facteus interviewed CFOs and members of the financial planning and analytics teams to uncover these insights and best practices. These stakeholders represented national and regional retailers, restaurants and consumer service providers.
About Facteus
Facteus provides comprehensive, timely, and privacy-compliant competitive sales intelligence from:
- Over 185 million U.S. consumer cards
- $1.6 trillion in annual spend
- One-day lag on new transactions
- Store-level and daypart-level granularity
- 100% privacy compliant and investor-grade
