1. Competitive Intelligence For Companies of all sizes

2. Questions
Do you believe that key information is being “filtered” within your company?
Would you like to have more information about competitors and markets?
Where does ~90% of the key information about competitors and markets reside?
A. Internally or B. Externally
What is the largest threat to your company?
What is the largest opportunity for your company?

3. What is Competitive Intelligence?
Competitive Intelligence ( C.I.) is the process of monitoring the competitive environment.
Effective C.I. is a continuous process involving:
The legal and ethical collection of information
Analysis that doesn’t avoid unwelcomed conclusions
Controlled dissemination of actionable intelligence to decision makers

4. Creating a Culture for Competitive Intelligence is a KEY step
Culture consists of the beliefs, behaviors, objects, and other characteristics common to the members of a particular group or society.

5. Investment Balance People & Process = Systems
Many companies do not focus enough time and effort on:
People
Processes
Internal Communications
Investment Balance People & Process = Systems

6. Lessons learned from DAS “skunk works” project
Company protected sales without any additional investment.
Slight organizational focus and additional process steps provided needed intelligence
Most all of the data needed was contained within different departments of the company.
Cross functional focus resulted in better overall outcome

7. Focusing FIRST on the 90%
Traditional organization design and reporting structure can undermine sharing of Intelligence
Processes & slight organizational redesign can address these organizational barriers
Focusing internally is the first step to building a culture which supports and feeds intelligence gathering and sharing.
Software decisions should support internal processes

8. Example of Three Software Providers
Cipher – high degree of customization
Comintelli– ability to capture internal
Digimind – web crawling and dashboard
Costs range from $80/user/month up to $35,000 set-up plus $3,500/month for unlimited number of users

9. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started” –Mark Twain Begin with “pilot” effort which includes:
Identify someone in your organization as the leader for Intelligence.
Determine a central location to store data and analysis results ..e.g. file share
Begin focused effort to collect and analyze existing data which addresses a business threat or opportunity
Identify data gaps and initiate plans to widen scope of data collection
Capture outcomes of effort and communicate results within your company

10. Step-by-Step following the “pilot”
Internal Marketing Plan
Inventory of Information
Integration into Strategic Plans
Senior Management Support
Mission and Vision Statement

11. Benefits Derived from CI
Summarizing the bottom line benefits of Competitive Intelligence programs:
Improved market knowledge that allows analysis and prediction of the future
Better business decisions in advance of competitive events (i.e. proactive vs. reactive)
More effective strategic plans and competitive strategies
More successful products and services
Increased sales and marketplace success
Improved cross-functional relationships in the organization
Surprise and crises avoidance
Knowledge transfer
Markets
Competitors
Industry-benchmarking

12. Potential “Pit-Falls”
Lack of focus on People
Lack of specific business focus can delay success and dilute efforts and increase costs
Not welcoming challenges to status quo thinking
Rewarding form vs. content
Do not “Kill the messenger” –learn from mistakes

13. Organizational Design Alternatives as defined by Clifford Kalb & Jan Herring
Ad-hoc Teams
Single Person Operation
Basic Team
The Center
The Department
Hub & Spoke
The Matrix
The Community
Source: SCIP Volume 15- Number 1-January/March 2012

14. People = Culture
Culture = Sustainability
People = Sustainability

15. R.L. (Bob) Fowler RL FOWLER Consulting, LLC