Competitive Intelligence

A.    No Relationship with Senior Management

Not all CI professionals are extroverts and nobody expects them to be. On the other hand, they must not pretend that all their research and analytical skills will be noticed or be of value if they sit in their office all day.

CI professionals must devote their time developing and nurturing relationships with senior management. A strong relationship with any senior manager will get the attention of that manager’s staff, who can also develop into valuable allies for your CI efforts.

Think about it. Would anyone, especially a senior manager, share information, concerns or needs with someone they did not know? Not likely and as a result the CI function is likely to suffer.

B.     Not Keeping Up with Education and New Techniques

Education is a responsibility that is often neglected, and CI professionals are no exception. There are some organizations that use only one method of reporting (e.g., an Excel matrix of competitive pricing) and one analytical methodology (e.g., SWOT analysis). Whether as an employee or consultant, you may be afraid of rocking the boat with new tools and approaches. Maybe you should.

New analytical techniques add valuable texture and context to available data that would otherwise not seen before.

C.    Avoiding the Truth

As a CI professional, sooner or later you will come across “sensitive” information (e.g. conflicts with your company’s current assessment of the market) that has to be brought to the attention of senior management. This is the information that senior management will not be happy to hear – or so you may think. If you avoid making people aware of these findings, you will not only be making a disservice to yourself, but also to the people who depend on the information.

If you do, you will gain the respect of your senior management. It will allow them to make more effective decisions, because they will have to first address the conflicting information, and in doing so get at the real truth.  

D.    Not  Making the Information Intelligible

CI professionals are trained in the art of obtaining and analyzing information. Too often, however, they stop there versus providing senior management with a presentation to make all the information intelligible so that decisions can be made and changes brought about.

Speak to the audience in their terms. If your focus is on product, the presentation should be on product analysis, such as how a competitor’s actions could threaten a particular product and what should be done about it.

E.     Not Celebrating Victories

CI professionals don’t always like to draw attention to themselves, but they should do so because it is in their best interest to do so.

Victories don’t always come in the form of your company doing something spectacular as a result of your efforts, but rather in your company not doing something that would have, otherwise, resulted in loss of time and revenue (e.g. a decision not to compete against a regional competitor or go after a market sector and so avoid losses in expenditures and human resources.)

That’s still a win. Celebrate it.

A.     We do have a competitive intelligence capability in place = It doesn’t seem to be of much benefit to us:

This situation may be caused when CI is conducted by a number of people within the company. Thus data and the interpretation of data is effectively summarized, co-ordinated and shared among key decision-makers within the company.

Another problem may be the person or persons conducting CI. If CI, or what passes for CI, is conducted by a low-level person or by someone for whom CI is a secondary responsibility. In these situations, CI is not given the time and budget necessary to be effective or to influence the decisions of senior management.

Finally, a major problem is what passes for CI. For some companies, collecting the ads, brochures or websites of competitors is the extent of their CI work. Many others focus exclusively on the prices charged by their competitors. They never go beyond that and, as a result, they don’t understand how their competitors think, which segment of the market they’re targeting, their cost of doing business, the service bundles that come with (or don’t come with) the prices charged,  their profit margin, or whether they are successful or not.

B.     CI is too expensive =  We know all about the competition

All too often, companies, or rather their senior management, who are confident they know all about their competition and the overall competitive environment are the ones who are blindsided by unexpected events. “We didn’t see it coming” is the plaintive cry from the senior management of companies who are run out of business or are forced to severely downsize because they did not see changes in the competitive environment like new technologies or non-traditional competitors.

A well-financed group of CI professionals play a key role in the success of companies in highly competitive environments. They take into consideration not only how the competition is reacting to changes technologies, demographics and legislation but can also determine their level of success and the challenges they pose to their competitors. They also analyze the impact of non-traditional competitors and new business models are challenging their industry and measures to counteract or exploit such changes.

This is where the value of Competitive Intelligence is derived.

C.     We are looking for 100% certainty = We would rather have no information

It is true that CI research does not always provide 100% of the data demanded by senior management. Not research of any kind can do that. But it is also true that CI research does provide very important pieces to the competitive environment puzzle. Analysis, knowledge of the industry, and being open-minded about developing technologies and new business models – or how existing technologies can be used in innovative ways – is what a CI professional uses to bring together different pieces of information, to synthesize them and to create a complete picture of the competitive environment, or even a number of possible future scenarios.

There is always uncertainty in business. Competitive Intelligence can provide senior managers with an understanding on how different decisions can impact their company and industry, and in so doing provides them with guidance in their decision-making.

After presenting the report for a major CI project to senior management, I found myself being questioned about the results of the study. It seems that a number of senior managers had made certain assumptions about the competition, and when they found that the report contradicted their assumptions they immediately called into question the results of the study and the methodology used.

As a CI Manager, I know that the methodology was valid, that we double-checked the data and the sources of the data, and that the conclusions we made are based on verified information. It’s just that these senior managers made the wrong assumptions.

How should one deal with the crossfire of internal politics?

This situation is one which most CI professionals (and Market Research professionals as well) will face sooner or later in their career: a client has a strong belief regarding the anticipated results of a study and, when that belief has been proven to be inaccurate, the client questions the results and those involved in the research.

In a recent study on wind turbines, a client questioned the results for a specific North American manufacturer, which indicated a high level of quality, high customer satisfaction and praise from industry experts. Further research and data were required to finally convince the client that the information was accurate and that, indeed, the manufacturer produced a high-quality product that was making strong inroads in the North American and global markets.

Knowing Your Client’s Biases

When interviewing or networking among internal (and external) clients, not only is it important to understand their information needs but also what their information biases are as well. Every client has a skewed view of the world based on their responsibilities within the company, their professional background and their experiences. As a CI professional, you should note clues these biases so that you will be able to address them during your research.

Being Prepared

When collecting and analyzing data, be prepared to respond to potential questions, especially if the information contradicts any set beliefs held by your clients.

If it is likely that the results of the study will likely engender criticism from clients:

1. Gather information from as many verifiable and reliable sources as possible;
2. Get more data than you usually need so that you can call upon a mass of data to support your findings;
3. Think about some of the questions that may be asked and answer those questions in your report;
4. Know your data and your sources thoroughly, because you may be asked a question you did not anticipate.

Conclusion

Understanding your clients’ biases can provide you with a forewarning of potential questions of study results. This will allow you an opportunity to gather sufficient, verifiable and cross-referenced data to be forearmed with the ability to answer those questions or criticisms.

You will never completely eliminate the possibility of criticism of study results but you can minimize their impact.