Resource Allocation for Market & Competitive Intelligence Functions

Resource allocation and securing capacities and budgets internally and externally is another important consideration that impacts success or failure of an intelligence operation inside an organization significantly. As a firm part of project development and role profiles, resources need to be agreed upon by all stakeholders and particularly management.

As a challenge the right amount of spending to get things moving (e.g. personal, consultant and travel expenses) and to make the intelligence products known and efficient (e.g. promotion of intelligence function and benefits, depositories and portals) needs to be balanced against the concern to overwhelm management and other opinion leaders with high costs.

Intelligence for any operation or organization being that large a topic and of major importance to most crucial decision making processes, taking intelligence function development step-wise might help to break cost and investments down in more logical and digestible chunks.

IT capacity, external consultants for intelligence advice and training, marketing & sales staff events or management involvement all need to be planned carefully as resources that would be invested into the market & competitive intelligence setup and deployment.

Ongoing resources, future capacities across the entire organization need to be clearly communicated and confirmed by management or a lack of resources will destroy many efforts along the way. Many companies suffer capacity shortages, business cycles might ask for dramatic cuts. The firmer resources are allocated and dedicated to the intelligence function, the lower the risk of losing energy and impact later on.