Competitive Intelligence in 1985

Posted on August 17, 2012 by ellendnaylor

When I wrote my Pecha Kucha presentation for our SLA Competitive Intelligence tournament, I decided to go back in time to 1985, the first year I focused entirely on competitive intelligence. This is the first in a series about how I evolved in my career in competitive intelligence, and what I have learned over time. Overall I am glad I had a start back then for the critical thinking and deeper relationships I developed. I am glad to still be in this field today where I can reach out to sources quickly that I would never have dreamed even existed, thanks to social networking.

1985 was a very different time and I will focus on the US.

  • Gas was $1.09/gallon
  • Movies were $2.75
  • Rent averaged $375/month
  • The Fed’s interest rate was 10.75%.

Technical differences were also noteworthy:

  • Windows 1.0 was introduced
  • CDs were introduced in the US in 1985
  • The first mobile telephone call was made in the UK by Ernie Wise

I started to focus on what we called competitive analysis just before the Society of Competitive Intelligence (SCIP) was formed, and didn’t learn about SCIP until 1989, two years before SCIP published its first membership directory. I worked for Bell Atlantic, a new company then, a Baby Bell from the initial AT&T divestiture. We were working out our company infrastructure as I was figuring out how best to provide and collect competitive intelligence.

I did not have a PC at my desk. My telephone was the most immediate form of communication with most of the company, although I could easily have in-person meetings with our product and marketing managers who sat close-by. In fact I had to be careful not to attend too many of their meetings else I wouldn’t get my work done. It correlates somewhat to spending too much time on email and social networks today.

We shared a fax machine among many of us, and waited in line at the photocopy machine. Secretaries typed up memos and reports. We took notes by hand. We memorized people’s phone numbers and had a Rolodex of names. I cross referenced my Rolodex names by job function in case I forgot a person’s name. We used company mail and US mail (which we didn’t call snail mail) for written communication.

Presentations would be typed up, given on overhead machines or written up on flip charts. I spent less time putting together presentations through these primitive means than I do today on PowerPoint decks since our standards were lower. I think people spent more time listening to what you had to say back then, since what you produced wasn’t much to look at. It also meant you had to know your stuff since there wasn’t the crutch of media to support you. People asked more questions and had more comments since they couldn’t easily get smart before a meeting like we can today by accessing the Internet to read up a bit.

I read the news in hard copy. We distributed news sources like Time, Business Week and Fortune among ourselves. I got my own copy of The Wall Street Journal which I read daily. We noted who got which industry consultant reports and subscriptions throughout Bell Atlantic. It could be that our Philadelphia office would get the only copy of an expensive industry report, and we would have to wait our turn to read it due to copyright issues.

The first organizational thing I did was a personal SWOT. My strength has always been visionary. I can see the big picture pretty readily and am creative. I am not strong with the details and execution although I am highly intuitive. I was lucky and found a wonderful lady to work with who was great with people and had a similar work ethic to mine. Unlike me, she was attentive to detail and great with execution. Over time we became a strong team, and are still friends some 25+ years later, although we live 2000 miles apart.

Our opportunity and our immediate threat were the same thing:

  • Learn how each of our regions communicated
  • Learn each region’s culture
  • Learn how individuals were motivated to share
  • Learn how individuals and each region would accept facts and ideas from a centralized group outside their region, namely us

We had to talk with each other more often than we do today, since there was no email; no voice mail or social media connection. I got copies of company’s (competitor’s) press releases from my company’s industry liaison person soon after she received them, so I could pass on the scoop to my company clients.

We had to use our creativity to achieve real-time intelligence, since people were our only real-time source, and we had fewer people we could reach out to since our world was smaller. On a positive note, our relationships with people were deeper, perhaps since we had fewer relationships. Our critical thinking skills were naturally sharpened with these deeper relationships. I had a few people outside the company that I had provocative discussions with often. These people helped me reach outside of Bell Atlantic’s culture and expand my vision of the competitive environment.

Filed under: communication, competitive analysis, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, connection, Cooperative Intelligence, creativity, Ellen Naylor, real-time intelligence, SCIP, SLA, social media, social networks, telephone | 2 Comments »

Independence or Not?

Posted on July 5, 2012 by ellendnaylor

It’s Independence Day in the US, and it makes me wonder how independent we are as individuals. These thoughts were inspired by “The Busy Trap” in the New Times by Tim Kreider.

How many times have you heard people say, “I am too busy. I am soooo busy.” Are most of us really busier than we used to be? Or are we imposing busyness by all the distractions of everyday 21st century life? I think the only ones who are truly too busy are those who are pulling 3 jobs barely scraping by; students who also work long hours while at university; single parents who no longer have the means to support their family; and those who take care of their elderly parents while also raising kids and working. Not only are they too busy, they are tired and we are losing their creativity while they are in these circumstances.

I traveled a lot in the last month to Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, DC, Virginia and Maryland. While I didn’t think about it, I found myself engaging with the present, with the people I was around and paying less attention to my social networks. I found myself a lot more relaxed, and less busy! I slept longer and was in a better mood. Laughter, which comes easily to me, was ever present. How many ways do you need to connect every day? Do you have to be connected to Twitter and Google+ constantly? How often do you need to log into LinkedIn not to mention Facebook and Foursquare? Do people really need to know what you’re doing all the time and where you ate and what airline you’re flying? Knowing when to connect on social media is a competitive advantage for individuals and for companies. Knowing when not to connect gives you more independence.

We have have had a record amount of fire destruction in Colorado already this summer. I don’t watch TV, another way that I am less busy. Last week when the Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs expanded ferociously from the wind gusts and dryness, I was in touch with the present through Twitter feeds and the live video-stream on the Internet. Soon we will have systems in place to help the many families who lost their homes build back their lives.

So how does this translate into competitiveness? We are flooded with incoming information and ways that people steal our time from us, if we pay attention to all of it, or even to too much of it. You don’t need to know ALL the information out there about your marketplace, new technology, the economy, the political situation, your customers, your suppliers and your competitors. Rather you need to know WHEN to pay attention when you are NOTICING CHANGE. If you spend too much time listening to all the chatter you might miss the important changes or your ability to predict how the marketplace is evolving and what you need to do to stay on top or at least to stay competitive!

So on this Independence Day, think about how you are going to regain some lost time in your life by turning down some of that “social noise,” tempting though it be. Learn how to relax again. I plan to enjoy my Mom today who is 94 and is visiting us. Maybe that’s why “The Busy Trap” spoke to me. I want to relish the time I have with her today. BTW she is napping now.

Filed under: competitive advantage, competitiveness, competitor, Cooperative Intelligence, creativity, Ellen Naylor, LinkedIn, social media, social networks, Twitter | Comments Off on Independence or Not?

Timing is Everything in Win/Loss Interviews

Posted on June 1, 2012 by ellendnaylor

Too many product managers seem to avoid customer interaction. While they know that customer Insights are useful to define products, features and the marketing message, there is this fear of customer confrontation. Yet most customers are actually quite willing to share the experience of dealing with your sales force, and how they chose your product or a competitor’s.

In a recent webinar I learned a few new things about the psychology behind conducting win/loss interviews. I have always told clients to makes sure that the sale is complete and implemented before handing them off to me to interview. In the webinar, Steve Johnson of discussed the timing of the win/loss interview.

Customers are the least confident during implementation, and often experience stress, so you are less likely to get a clear headed reaction to their decision-making process, and what features they do/don’t like or what they think of your products or marketing message. They will be preoccupied with the process of implementation. For example, they might have thought they would get more handholding or professional services during implementation.

Timing is everything in life, and the same is true in win loss analysis. I think the best time to call customers is after implementation, since how that went will often affect their desire to do future business with you or the competition. If implementation did not go well with a lost customer, you might have a chance to jump back into the sales mode sooner. The loss interview will uncover this. You will also learn, in detail, how the competition implemented the product or service, which is great competitive intelligence. The customer is more level headed after the stressful implementation phase is complete and they are trained on how to use the product.

Another observation: It used to be rude to email customers/prospects to schedule win/loss interviews. Now, this is the best way for connection. People appreciate knowing who you are; the value proposition of partaking in a win/loss interview; and that you are not trying to jump back in to sell. Another reason I like to connect via email ahead of time is I hope that they will pick up the telephone when I call them. Caller ID is not a win/loss interviewer’s friend since many people won’t pick up the phone unless they recognize the telephone number.

I like it the best if my client informs their customers and prospects that I will be calling. Better yet, if Sales informs all prospects and customers during the sales presentation that win/loss interviews are part of doing business, and they occur after the sale is consummated and the product is installed regardless of who wins the business: your company or a competitor.

Win/loss learning is often more about the failure of the selling process rather than selling the product. There were several sources that Steve shared that are worthwhile for those who want to understand customers and the buying and selling processes.

The New Rules of Sales Enablement by Jeff Ernst – This explains that the way we sell is often out of synch with how people want to buy.
Buyer Persona – Adele Revella instructs people on how to ask probing questions to learn what matters to your buyers. This relates to win/loss since it’s by probing that you learn the real reasons why your buyers choose you or your competitors, or decide to do nothing at all. You want to uncover how to delight the person who is buying your solution. Other books include: Innovation Games and Never Eat Alone.

In conclusion, if you just have one time to conduct win/loss interviews, wait until after implementation or a rule of thumb is wait 2-3 months after the sale closes. If you wait too long, they’ll forget the details around the sales event that you are trying to collect and analyze.

Win/Loss Analysis book gives you a process to learn why you’re losing business and how to keep more of it!

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Filed under: competition, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, connection, Cooperative Intelligence, Ellen Naylor, interview, telephone, win loss analysis | Comments Off on Timing is Everything in Win/Loss Interviews

How Intuition Can Guide Your Research & Research Business

Posted on May 25, 2012 by ellendnaylor

I recently was the recipient of the AIIP’s Connections Writer’s Award, which is presented to “the writer of the best original article published in AIIP Connections each year.” Unfortunately you have to be an AIIP member to access this article. However, in the spirit of cooperative intelligence, I will provide a summary, and encourage you independent entrepreneurs to consider joining AIIP to help you grow your business. This is a group of people who want to help you succeed in your small business, whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for a while. In addition to full members who own their business, AIIP also offers associate membership to those who work in larger companies and student membership.

Critical thinking and intuition are two skills that are often overlooked in this information explosion. We often jump to conclusions with more certainty without testing our conclusions by standing back and questioning our assumptions in a broader context. Likewise, many of us have lost touch with our intuition, which I consider the barometer of veracity. Nothing replaces the gut reaction that tells a researcher that something doesn’t feel right, something is missing, or that she is confident with her findings.

I recall a project where I couldn’t understand why the target company would remain in the glass industry when they were losing more money every year in this business. I learned that the company had invested as little as it could to keep the operation running, that there were occasional accidents, and that many glass products were trashed since the quality was so bad. There were glass trash piles around the factory and it sounded like an awful place to work.

The company was making money in its other divisions, and was publicly held so there was scrutiny by analysts about its operation. My client suggested I listen to a quarterly earnings discussion, which I reluctantly agreed to as I figured I could more quickly read it later. Boy was I wrong. One analyst asked the CEO about the failing glass business. The CEO’s voice turned emotional as he skirted the question in a mournful tone of voice. His Dad had bought the glass business, and the CEO was emotionally attached to it. He would feel like a failure were he to sell this business.

My intuition told me that it would take a major bad event to push this CEO out of the glass business, such as a bad factory accident or a disgruntled stockholder. A couple of years later, a disgruntled stockholder, an investment company with a large share of stock ownership, issued a formal written complaint (Form 13D) with the SEC. Divestiture followed. My client was ready to grab the business.

I have been in business for almost 20 years, and still make mistakes when I don’t listen to or trust my intuition. Listening to your intuition is one of the most precious gifts you have in life. It can save you a lot of time in the research and competitive intelligence processes, and can help you qualify your sales prospects and deal with people authentically.

Filed under: AIIP, Competitive Intelligence, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, Ellen Naylor, research | 3 Comments »

Personality Profiling: Gauge Your Competitor’s Management Team

Posted on May 11, 2012 by ellendnaylor

Last week I attended AIIP’s annual conference in Indianapolis, IN. I learned so much about running a small business better!

I gave a talk on competitive intelligence, and how information professionals can make a decent living by adding this skill to their research toolkit. Many are good at the collection and organization of findings. However, one area that folks seemed less familiar with was analytic tools, which allow you to communicate findings more persuasively if you use the right tool. In an earlier post, I described the Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Matrix model  and how I used this to set the marketing stage for an acquisition some years ago.

Another great analytic tool is personality profiling. Most often companies study their competitor’s management team or key employees such as the head of R&D. Usually their strengths and weaknesses follow them from job to job. It’s good to understand their predisposition; what mistakes they have made in the past; and what blind spots they might have. You can obtain the intelligence to develop personality profiles easily enough for executives in publicly held companies since you have plenty of sources such as speeches made to various audiences such as industry conferences and the financial community. It can be trickier to find information for executives running privately held companies. I find that local sources are the best, such as local newspapers and magazines, the chamber of commerce, economic development offices and perhaps their schools. In some cases you will get lucky and locate a chatty employee or ex-employee through a social network such as LinkedIn, Twitter, an industry Ning, forum or association.

Don’t just focus on their professional experience as their personal life is just as important, and often highly influences their professional decision-making. Sometimes you get great intelligence through an executive’s favorite charitable cause or hobby. The non-profit that they make donations to probably has some information on this executive, since they will need this information to pitch their cause to him or her.

My favorite grid for organizing what you need to collect and how to organize it comes from Walter Barndt, Professor and author of User Directed Competitive Intelligence. This is one of my favorite competitive intelligence books since Walter gets the reader to empathize with the user of competitive intelligence, rather than simply describing how to conduct competitive intelligence.

For those who want to read some books on analytical tools, I have listed three favorites here. Just recently, another analytical book, Analyst’s Cookbook, Volume 2 was published by Mercyhurst College for the Kindle. I have not read it yet but see that it’s a short book, less than 90 pages and retails for $4.99. Here is the Amazon connection to purchase it.

Filed under: AIIP, Competitive Intelligence, Ellen Naylor, LinkedIn, research, social networks, Twitter | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

12 Tips to Guarantee Your Success in Collecting Intelligence from Sales

Posted on February 19, 2012 by ellendnaylor

Recently I gave a webinar for SCIP chapters in Mercyhurst and Ohio on how to capture competitive intelligence from Sales by using cooperative intelligence skills. I love serving Sales Reps since I can easily translate what I provide into an ROI benefit, namely more sales. Ongoing sales intelligence is the best tactical competitive intelligence, and it’s current.

1. First realize how Sales is motivated: they have a short-term outlook, want to look good, are often in competition with each other, and have a high need for recognition.

2.You need to Give to Sales before they will believe in you. And it better be what they need, not what your corporation wants Sales to have. Likewise if you don’t use what Sales provides, they will stop giving.

3. Gaining cooperation from Sales isn’t tough. It’s in their best interest to collect competitive intelligence to do their job, to win more deals. You just need to convince them that you’re a worthy client.

4. Find out what’s hard for them to get that they value. You have access to so much information. What about those industry analyst or financial analyst reports? How about competitor profiles you’ve developed? They’ll tell you what they need.

5. Make it easy for them to locate what you develop for them. It’s best if you can make it part of a software system that they already use like salesforce.com. Remind them where your nuggets of information reside periodically.

6. Think about ways you can help sales depending on where they are in the sales cycle. What do they already produce that you can build off of?

7. Start slow in Sales and find the right people to service. They can be low in the organization as long as they’ll publicize how great what you provided is. While Sales Reps spend a lot of time out of the office, it’s amazing how connected they can be. As you start producing the right deliverables for Sales, their bosses will find out, and you will be recognized.

8. Insert yourself into Sales events like teleconferences, conferences, webinars or blogs to maintain your visibility.

9. Be easy to find and responsive since many in corporations hide from Sales rather than service them.

10. I enjoy developing win loss analysis programs since I can cooperatively include Sales as I get positioned with their customers and prospects to learn how we can improve win rates, customer service, product features, implementation, tech support, customer testimonials, develop better products and so much more.

11. Involve Sales for Trade Show collection since they’re already at shows with their customers, so put them to work collecting competitive information since most have not a shy bone in their body. They know how to ask the right questions, so you don’t need to train them.

12. A final tip: don’t forget to ask Sales how you’re doing so you continue to deliver the right products to your sales force.

Serve Sales well and you will have job security even in a tough economy since they are the company’s revenue producers!

I have posted the Sales Intelligence presentation in Slideshare.

Filed under: competition, Competitive Intelligence, cooperation, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, D. Sales Intelligence Articles, Ellen Naylor, trade show, win loss analysis | 7 Comments »

Real-Time Competitive Intelligence

Posted on June 3, 2011 by ellendnaylor

Competitive Intelligence has historically focused on strategic and tactical forms of intelligence. In fact, SCIP changed its acronym from Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals to Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals. While competitive intelligence is an important component in strategic planning, and companies benefit from scenario planning: many companies miss the boat by not conducting and communicating competitive intelligence in real-time. Real-time competitive intelligence deserves to be a focus within the profession.

Many companies think they are conducting real-time competitive intelligence since they monitor their market landscape continuously on the Internet and increasingly through social media such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook as well as industry specific forums or social networks like Ning. While monitoring is the foundation of real-time market intelligence, it is not actionable. The action you take in real-time will give you a competitive advantage.  As David Meerman Scott said at our AIIP conference, “Speed and agility bring competitive advantage…Act now before the window of opportunity vanishes.”

That’s the point: many in competitive intelligence sit on the knowledge they gain from monitoring the environment. I think part of the reason is that competitive intelligence is a staff job, and many in the profession don’t have the authority to take action. Some corporate cultures reward information hoarding, the exact opposite of sharing and taking action.

However, competitive intelligence managers can inform our company employees in real-time, and in areas where we have more knowledge, we can make recommendations. The balancing act in our job is to offer cooperative intelligence: don’t inundate people with too much information, just what you know is important to them.

When you read a rumor about a competitor or marketing trend that could significantly impact your company, check it out right away. This usually involves talking to another human being. That’s why having a deep human source network is essential for every competitive intelligence practitioner.

When you’re at a trade show, report back your findings several times during the day to the sources in your company who are asking. Invariably your findings bring up more questions.

It’s interesting that Sales will quickly follow up with leads immediately after a conference or trade show. With the same exuberance, you need to fire off a report of your key findings to those who need to know, and those you suspect should know. Don’t put it off: some of the most timely intelligence comes from trade show interviews. What I really like is that much of this is not published yet, and can be used to give your company’s marketing, sales and product teams a leg up.

When you hear that a competitor is merging or acquiring another company, put the word out immediately at your company, especially to sales people, as they can reassure your customers that your good service will continue, and perhaps instill doubt about the merged competitor entity.

The point is those companies that take action more immediately are the winners these days. Those that ignore events or sit on valuable information lose. What has been your experience with real-time competitive intelligence?

Filed under: AIIP, competitive advantage, Competitive Intelligence, competitor, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, Denver, Ellen Naylor, LinkedIn, sales people, SCIP, social networks, trade show, Twitter | 5 Comments »

Competitive Intelligence Ethics

Posted on October 20, 2010 by ellendnaylor

I recently spoke with a consultant who was facing an interesting dilemma. Her firm had led the initiative behind a major technology roll out for a big company. One of their competitors was talking with her about competitive intelligence. Being conscientious, she was concerned that this could be ethically challenging.

Another key issue was trust. If the key competitor found out she worked for the other firm, even though the gig would be helping them set up a process, not competitor research, would they lose trust?

It’s Your Reputation

It takes many years to build a credible business that you need to consider building and maintaining relationships continuously. It’s easy enough for people to misinterpret what you’re doing which causes your reputation to sink. We face these issues often in the field of competitive intelligence.

Competitive Intelligence Is Not Competitor Intelligence

Competitive intelligence is often misunderstood. This consultant had immediately translated competitive intelligence into COMPETITOR intelligence. After we spoke for a while, I found out that there were a number of competitors in her client’s marketplace.

Competitive intelligence is about staying competitive, so there are a whole host of other factors that keep you competitive.

It’s easy to fall into the competitor trap. Here are few things to keep in mind about competitive intelligence. Much of my time is helping companies with market opportunity analysis, that is finding ways to make more money or perhaps studying the marketplace to find out that an opportunity we believed would be lucrative, is a money loser.

A popular competitive intelligence tool is STEEP analysis where you consider the macro environment that you compete in, how it is shifting, and how you might shape it to maintain your leadership. My colleague, Futurist Erik Garland gives a great explanation of STEEP.

S = social trends

T= technology trends

E = economic trends

E = ecological trends

P = political trends

Porter’s 5 Forces is an industry analytical tool used in competitive intelligence that looks at competitors, substitute products, potential new competitors, customers and suppliers and the relative influence and power of each in your industry.

Competitive intelligence folks also talk to numerous internal and external people to learn about the marketplace, and the competitors are only 1 small piece. I spend more time studying customers’ needs, and feel that the sales force is one of a company’s richest sources of competitive intelligence since they are talking to customers every day, learning not only about the competition, but enabling product development with products and services customers will pay for. They hear about new technology, innovation and rumors about political changes that could threaten your company’s sales success, and so much more once you make the connection into their collective and individual wisdom.

Back to Competitive Intelligence Ethics

I don’t work for competing firms if I’m doing competitor research/analysis work, and have not worked for competitors when setting up a CI process. If I’m asked to research a competitor I refer the business to another firm. How do you weigh in on this?

Here is an article, Timeless Advice for Making a Hard Choice, by Joseph L. Badaracco of HBR Online. This gives a broader perspective on ethics in business.

Win/Loss Analysis book gives you a process to learn why you’re losing clients and how to keep more business! Competitive Intelligence ethics lives here.

Filed under: competitive intelligence ethics, Denver, Ellen Naylor | 1 Comment »

Are We Losing the Art of Conversation?

Posted on November 18, 2009 by ellendnaylor

As I spend more time at my parents watching my Dad drift towards death, I have less energy for blogging, but plenty of time to ponder.

I recently read a blog by Sarah Perez about a study from Pew Internet and American Life Project which finds that social media is actually social. Those who surf the web and use mobile phones are more social and better connected to the world at large than those who don’t.

But what is ‘social’? I find that the connections I make and the blogs that I read through social networking are shallow in comparison to the connections and knowledge I gain and exchange in conversation. Social networks provide snippets and tidbits of information. As a society are we losing our ability and culture of conversation?

While this is anecdotal, enough friends tell me they don’t like to receive or leave voice mails since they find the phone to be a waste of time. Maybe I am too old, but I find the phone to be a great use of time, since I both speak and listen to words a lot faster than I can type/read them. Granted I can only engage is one conversation at a time, but there is a depth of conversation that I can routinely get to even on the telephone that just isn’t possible through social networks or any Internet communication.

As a researcher I appreciate that I can find and connect with people I could never have previously reached through social networks. However, I also recognize that those connections can be shallow, and that some people take advantage of what they can get from you through social connection. I had one person lead me to believe that he wanted to do business. Instead he took my proposed solution and implemented it himself. I found this out when I saw his firm listed as a user of a database I had recommended. There is even less loyalty among social connections, since many people don’t really know you, and don’t want to know you. They just want to connect with you to get to your connections. That isn’t what I call social: but, this does extend one’s network beyond one’s known business connections.

As a society we have been creeping away from conversations ever since television became common, and many of us remain glued to TV even as we eat dinner instead of conversing about our day. Now we have the Internet with its many distractions, one of which is email.  We have so many choices of ways to connect such as text messaging, and social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest . There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t get several invitations to join various social networks or LinkedIn groups from people who have no idea who I am. I get so much spam through LinkedIn connections who are selling me something, asking me to endorse them or to join their LinkedIn Group. There is a lot of noise out there, and many distractions through an increasing number of social networks. I find that it’s a real balancing act to get my work done for all the noise.

But for now I’m having some deep conversations with family members. There is nothing like the impending loss of a loved one to draw out emotion and connection.

Filed under: communication, connection, conversation, Ellen Naylor, LinkedIn, research, social networks, telephone, Twitter | 4 Comments »

Introduction to Competitive Intelligence

Posted on October 19, 2009 by ellendnaylor

At a recent Denver joint SCIP and APMP chapter meeting, I was asked to put together some introductory slides about competitive intelligence to set the stage for the more sophisticated discussion around “Price to Win,” which is sophisticated analysis around bids/outcomes for major contracts, usually with huge government customers.

As I assembled my slides, I realized that very little has changed in the competitive intelligence (CI) process, while the execution of the collection phase of competitive intelligence has changed remarkably over the 20+ years I have been in the business with the advent of the Internet in all its iterations, e-mail, text messaging and more recently through social networks.  This also affects counterintelligence, since it is easier for your competitors—or anyone who is interested enough—to dig up information about your company that you consider proprietary. This information comes not only through electronic means, but through ex-employees, especially from all the downsizing in the last couple of years.

One common misconception is that competitive intelligence just focuses on the competition. Make no mistake competition is part of this: but you also want to take into account all the factors that affect the competitive marketplace such as economic conditions like the current unstable economy. In the US, the stock market has staged a quick recovery although the NYSE is still 4000 points below its peak in 2007. When you consider the stock market’s quick ascent after such a steady descent, you have to wonder how sustainable it is and how this will affect your customers, suppliers and competitors. Politics can affect the competitive marketplace. Were I in the US healthcare business, I would study all the ramifications of the proposed healthcare reform, and would conduct scenario planning exercises to prepare my company for change.

Here are 10 points to consider whether you’re starting or leading an established CI operation regardless of how you’re organized or what country you work in. These points are timeless: I put this list together in the early 1990s. While technology impacts our lives far more than it did then, human nature has not changed, and that’s what’s behind these steps.

1. Identify primary users
2. Focus on critical users’ needs
3. Fashion products to meet users’ needs
4. Be mindful of the company culture
5. Identify & build on infrastructure that supports CI
6. Organize & expand your people network constantly
7. Promote communication
8. Don’t implement automation before people
9. Checkpoint performance always
10. Stay focused

I didn’t include cooperative intelligence when I started my CI career since I was too focused on learning how to do competitive intelligence. Cooperative Intelligence focuses on good communication, solid connections, and being respected as a leader by providing good knowledge and insightful work. CI is more of a back office function: CEOs don’t look to hire people in their c-suite with CI experience. However, many areas within a company do rely on good competitive intelligence–which if communicated well and in a timely fashion–does lead people to respect the CI manager. You can be the greatest executor of competitive intelligence, but if you can’t communicate relevant information and analysis to the right people at the right time, it really doesn’t matter. This is the core of cooperative intelligence in the context of competitive intelligence—being so connected with your internal customers, that you know what to provide when—and get feedback from them, so you stay on target.

Filed under: communication, Competitive Intelligence, connection, cooperative, Cooperative Intelligence, Denver, Ellen Naylor, leadership, SCIP, social networks | 1 Comment »

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