Friday, February 10, 2012 ISSUE 35   HOME Identifying your company’s real intelligence needs. Jan P. Herring, jpherring@snet.net Like all successful products and services, competitive intelligence (CI) must satisfy a real need. For without a satisfied customer, the need for that product – and, those who provide it – disappear! That is the basic tenet in all successful businesses. It is no different with competitive intelligence. Consequently, the most critical activity in the overall intelligence process is the cogent identification of the organization’s real intelligence needs. When properly done, such a needs identification process provides the CI operation not only its most important tasks, it also gives it the ability to continuously adapt to the organization’s changing needs and its competitive environment. When this happens the CI function becomes an organic part of the company and the management that it serves. Eventually it becomes a part of that organization’s culture. Easier said than done. Within most business organizations there are three basic sources of intelligence needs: 1. senior management and other key decision makers. 2. existing management processes and procedures, such as program and budget reviews. 3. the CI function itself. Each source has its own particular character, and in a market-sense, importance. In my experience, management’s intelligence needs (or as I have labeled them, key intelligence topics) are perceived as the most important -- at least by the managers themselves. 1. Senior management. Senior managers and those assigned leadership responsibilities are entrusted with running the company and making the critical business decisions for the organization. It is only common sense that the CI needs of such decision makers and planners are important to the company’s business success and competitive survival. Furthermore, those business decisions and plans become the objectives and priorities that middle-level managers and individual business units must address in their areas of responsibilities. Unless the company’s management structure and operations are completely dysfunctional, both senior management and business unit/functional managers will be working on similar goals and priorities – and consequently, effective CI operations focused on senior management’s key intelligence topics (KITs) will produce intelligence that should benefit both. (The business-level manager will also have additional needs for tactical or operational intelligence to support their roles as implementers of the company’s overall strategic plans.) 2. Management processes and procedures. The second source of real intelligence needs is existing management processes and procedures. The most common of these is a company’s program or business review process. Almost all companies periodically examine existing business performances or new product development programs. In most cases, the basic performance measure is some pre-agreed upon growth or revenue figure, where results are often compared, in some fashion, to the competition (e.g. relative market share or the number of head-to-head contract wins/losses). Similarly, companies that are dependent upon developing new technologies and products, use some form of R&D planning process such as stage-gate reviews or technology roadmaps. In both cases the relative position and performance of competitors’ technology development are required so that management can make their decision about going forward on their own R&D programs. The quality and accuracy of the competitive technology intelligence (CTI) in such management processes is critical to the long-term success of the company’s new product and future sales and marketing activities. The pro-active CI use of such existing management processes and procedures to identify and focus on the organization’s key intelligence needs has been sparse in most companies. This is somewhat disappointing, since in my experience such KITs are real and, because they are a part of the company’s on-going management activities, the resulting intelligence is inherently actionable. Furthermore, it can make a clearly identifiable difference. I recall the work that Dr. Martha Eger did while she was at Hoffman LaRoche, providing CTI on competitors’ pharmaceutical products so that her management could decide whether to continue or stop R&D on their own comparable drugs. In those cases where they made the tough decision to “pull the plug” on projects, they had already spent years and millions of dollars. The CTI she provided had to be both accurate and credible. It was. As a result of the decision to stop development, the company avoided further spending on products that had little chance of reaching future markets in time to be successful. Such intelligence needs are real. They require the professional initiative of CI managers who have the will and fortitude to lay the department’s reputation and credibility on the line. Making the CI function perform as an accountable part of the company’s management process is a high visibility activity that too few CI managers are willing to pursue. 3. The CI function. The third source of a company’s intelligence needs is the CI function itself, particularly the operations and activities that focus on new competitors and marketplace early warning indicators (which it should be monitoring on a continuous basis). Irrespective of the CI activity involved – whether it is a 5 Forces industry assessment, a competitive technology forecast or some recent discovery of a totally new competitor at a trade show – the integrity and credibility of the CI unit is the critical element in this identification of real intelligence needs for the company. Furthermore, the CI leadership and professionalism required to focus the attention of a company’s senior management and other key decision makers on an intelligence-initiated issue or topic is considerable. Unfortunately, most CI professionals that complain when their advice and suggested KITs are ignored do not have the credibility or professional reputation to earn their management’s trust. In my experience, too few Directors of CI programs possess these leadership traits. Those that do are truly CI leaders. We can learn much from their examples. Anticipating future needs In the final analysis, it is only when a competitive intelligence function is addressing the KITs coming from all three sources that the CI organization can be sure it is addressing the whole company’s intelligence needs. And when it is doing that proficiently the CI organization actually begins to anticipate the company’s future intelligence needs – at that point, the company becomes an intelligent organization. Harder done than said. Background: Jan P. Herring developed and managed Motorola’s highly acclaimed intelligence program, co-founded the Academy of Competitive Intelligence, and in his earlier career, set up the US government’s first business intelligence program. He is a charter member of SCIP, and has received SCIP’s Fellow, Meritorious, and Faye Brill Service Award for his many years of direct and extraordinary support. Jan now has his own consulting firm, Herring & Associates, which assists intelligence professionals to set up and manage their own business intelligence programs, as well as improve their existing intelligence operations. He can be reached at (860) 232-9080 or jpherring@snet.net. copyright Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals www.scip.org scip.online, issue 35, July 14, 2003 [PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION] There are no letters available. [POST]

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