Building upon Competitive Intelligence
Hilary McLellan
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Making and implementing decisions boils down to a key ingredient: listening. I often wonder why schools emphasize debating. Why not have listening classes as well? Debating is easy; listening with an open mind is not. The worst thing that you as a leader can do in the decision-making process is to voice your opinion before anyone else can. No matter how open and honest your people are, stating your opinion first will short-change the discussion process and taint what you hear later. I've learned this the hard way. There are two classes of decisions. The first is the easy kind. For instance, how do you choose which features to include in the next release of your product? It's a pretty straightforward process: Survey your customers, identify the information you need, and formulate a decision by using rational, objective measurements. The second class is the tough kind. For instance: Should you hire this person? Should you go after this key market? Should you switch jobs? Should you have a kid? These are bet-your-life decisions for which there's no obvious right or wrong answer - and no way of gathering objective information. To tackle decisions of either class, I first kick into a talkative mode. I ask everybody I know to give me an opinion. I get different perspectives - and I listen to them. I also listen to that thing called intuition. Some people warn against that approach. But there's a kind of processing that happens in a far deeper place than logical processing does. Intuition offers a way to integrate and synthesize, to weigh and balance information. If I have to make a big decision, I listen to what others think. But ultimately, I listen to my intuition. I postpone a decision until I wake up one morning and know where my gut is going. Deborah Triant Everyone has two things in mind when approaching a big decision. The first thing is a scenario - a view of how the world will turn out. The second thing is an objective or a strategy. A good decision-making process marries those two things. Roger Rainbow The crux of making good decisions isn't doing things right - it's making sure that you focus on the right things. As citizens of the Information Age, we're overwhelmed with data, reports, facts - much of it noise that we need to filter out before we can figure out what's relevant to a decision. So I've learned to hone my discrimination skills. But if you're exploring something that has no precedent - an idea, a product, a service - you can't rely solely on data to guide you. You have to rely on people too. I've developed a personal advisory council that I consult before tackling a big decision, a group of people who are anchored by similar values - though not necessarily by similar perspectives. Chris Newell |
Competitive intelligence will not have an impact unless the organization gathering CI pays attention to it and builds upon it. This includes institutionalizing CI and making it an ongoing, continuous process, adapting the CI process to the needs of decision-makers so that they integrate it into their decisions, and evaluating the way CI is gathered to assess how well it is functioning and what can be done to improve it.
Institutionalizing CI and Making it an Ongoing, Continuous Process
The mindset underlying competitive intelligence are the complete antithesis of the traditional "information on a need-to-know" mindset. The "need-to-know" mindset is exclusionary. The mindset underlying CI is one of inclusion --- including everyone in the process of noticing and reporting on things that are potentially relevant to comptetition. Senge et al. (1999) report on several strategies for building inclusion, within the framework of a "learning organization" --- an organization committed to ongoing learning and adaptation to change. The notion of the learning organization is very sympatico with competitive intelligence --- both sets of practices have emerged formally within the past decade or so in response to changes in our cultural and business contexts due in large measure to the increasing pace of change. Here are four strategies that Senge et al. recommend for a learning organization:
The process of getting people to change their existing mindsets and conventional wisdom is not an easy process by any means, but the results can be very exciting. Technology can be an important part of the solution. As Turner (1999) explains, "Information technology at its best is a tool that supports innovation, learning, and participatory environments. Although it is not the answer, information technology is certainly an important part of the equation.: (p. 164). Information technology provides a wealth of information, but it also plays the role of communication tool. As a communication tool, information technology can support the institutionalization of CI. Listservs, chatrooms, the input that a tech support staff is receiving from customers, monitoring user group communications, all of these resources for obtaining feedback can enhance CI if the information is funneled to the competitive intelligence professionals. Similarly, it is possible to create online feedback mechanisms such as online forms or a designated email address that is publicized throughout the organization where people can report information they think might be useful. Of course, the organization must take a nondefensive attitude that encourages this kind of feedback --- including negative feedback.
Adapting the CI Process to the Needs of Decision-Makers
In building upon competitive intelligence, the goal is to convert intelligence into decisions that result in value for the organization. Leonard Fuld points out that getting a handle on the decision makers in an organization is an important part of competitive intelligence. As Fuld explains, "The "people factor" is so important. You can't reduce competitive intelligence to a spreadsheet. One exercise we like to do is to profile the top managers in a company or business unit. What's their background? Their style? Are they marketers? Are they cost-cutters? The more articles you collect, the more bios you download, the better you get at creating these profiles. All this material is on the Web." (quoted in Imperato,1998)
This is not always easy since different participants in the decision-making process have different agendas. Herr's (1999) account in the yellow box below highlights the differing agendas of senior and middle managers that can create problems for the effective implementation of competitive intelligence. This aspect of competitive intelligence is a two-way street, as Herr explains:
"The identification of a company's most important intelligence needs is the critical step in the intelligence cycle. Their cogent identification and clear articulation are the shared responsibility of the users and the intelligence professionals. For management, their stated needs for intelligence --- by whatever process --- provides them actionable access to CI resources throughout the company. For the intelligence professional, well-defined intelligence needs are the prescription for planning and carrying out the right intelligence operations and producing the appropriate intelligence products. Both players have a critical stake in getting the "requirement" right. To accomplish this successfully requires a well-educated user and an experienced CI manager who together have created the professional environment necessary to identify and communicate real intelligence needs throughout the company. Mutual respect, trust, and confidential dialogue are the essential elements of such communications. (p. 77. Italics in the original.)
Evaluating the Way CI is Gathered
Assessing the effectiveness of competitive intelligence is important for several reasons. First, it is important to show that the competitive intelligence provides value. Related to this, assessment is needed to show that the investment in competitive intelligence is justified. And in addition, assessment of competitive intelligence is needed to determine whether resource allocations should be revised --- in other words, to determine if additional investment in CI is needed or to determine if the resources allocated to CI should be reallocated so that competitive intelligence can be gathered more effectively. If competitive intelligence is to be a success, there must be an ability to measure monetary value. Assessing the quality of management decisions is also important.
Competitive intelligence is fairly new, so Herr (1999) suggests that research in related fields may provide useful guides. This includes research in the areas of (1) libraries and information services; (2) market research; and (3) office automation/information technology. Related efforts to measure business effectiveness, for example in the area of knowledge management, can also provide a guide for evaluating competitive intelligence initiatives.
According to Herr (1999), "There is much that the private sector can learn about intelligence operations and its production from government counterparts, mainly because they have been involved in intelligence for so long. However, neither the government nor the private sector appear to have found practical and effective ways of measuring intelligence effectiveness. Most attempts have been ad hoc and have resulted in little useful experience." (p. 11) Nonetheless, Herrr recommends the following strategies for measuring the effectiveness of competitive intelligence:
The key is ongoing assessment to improve the processes by which competitive intelligence is gathered and the quality of the CI product.
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In answer to the basic question, "How does management evaluate CI today?" I offer the following: Almost always informally, implicitly...and often unexpectedly. I found none of the companies interviewed --- nor was I able to identify any other company programs --- to have a formal, organized evaluation process. On the other hand, CI programs are often unexpectedly evaluated when management is reviewing budgets and looking for ways to economize operations. CI programs that have not earned their way or contributed in any tabgible fashion to the company's business are often easy marks for such budget-cutting exercises. Based on my own experience running Motorola's CI program and setting up several dozen other Competitive Intelligence programs, I see two very different perspectives for evaluating a company's CI effort. We, the practitioners --- who live and produce intelligence --- are concerned with our credibility, the quality of our intelligence, and the form in which we deliver it. We are usually more concerned with how it appears than what it does. On the other hand, the executive, the user of intelligence, is principally concerned with what it does for the organization and the business. Management expects "it" to cause action; i.e., increase sales, produce better products, create more effective strategies. Senior management expects intelligence to cause other managers to act or to change their marketing or operating plans. They see intelligence as essential to strategic decision making and a key element in making business decisions. Furthermore, management expects intelligence to change the "mind set" of decision makers throughout the company, making them more competitive or ready to act. And finally, management expects intelligence to have significant and tangible impact on the business itself. With this message load and clear in my ears, I began looking for an effective process to identify and measure the "actionable effects" of business and Competitive Intelligence. Although I had heard senior management's message clearly, I also experienced a very interesting discord coming from what I would classify as middle managers; i.e., vice-presidents for marketing and other staff functions, whom I had interviewed as well as some that I had talked to outside the surveyed companies. Some middle managers, for different reasons, want to see intelligence products and programs evaluated on a more quantitative basis, including size, shape, and cost as well as impact. In essence, this middle-management bureacratic approach to "managing" intelligence programs is likely to complicate the task of providing action-oriented CI measures to senior management. Jan P. Herring (p. 43) |
References
Herring, J. P. (1999). Measuring
the Effectiveness of Competitive Intelligence: Assessing and Communicating
CI's Value to Your Organization. Alexandria, VA: Society for
Competitive Intelligence Professionals.
Imperato, G. (1998, April). Competitive
Intelligence -Get Smart! Fast Company.
Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., Roth, G., and Smith,
B. (1999). The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining
Momentum in Learning Organizations. New York: Doubleday.
Turner, Chris. (1999). All Hat and No Cattle. Cambridge,
MA: Perseus Books.
Internet Resources