The OP describes competition teardown and learning from what they do, essentially reverse engineering their processes and also applying things from other domains to your own domains. I think seeking patent protection for your own processes when you actively recommend tearing down processes of your competition is a bit odd.
"""borrowing a proven approach from a parallel industry"""
I've translated that to copy+improve. I mean what if that approach was patent protected? How would you go about borrowing that proven approach?
