Delivery & Dissemination
Releasing market data, industry information and readily structured business intelligence needs to be accompanied by management consent, support and motivation as well as coaching and rewarding role-model behavior in an initial phase. Success stories published at the corporate Intranet or cascaded down the reporting lines should boost utilization and a favorable attitude right from the start.
Once the benefit adds value to market intelligence users a dynamic two way process will set in supporting the back flow of intelligence into the intelligence processes and intelligence systems as intelligence users will realize how much their contribution matters and how dependent the market intelligence quality actually is from their active role.
Dissemination – Data streams, information feeds and any other effective market intelligence dissemination method are to ensure smooth and wide-spread broadcasting of that intelligence. Glitches and edges in delivering intelligence will have to be fixed on the go ensuring smooth operation and demonstrating the living nature of all market and competitive intelligence processes and tools.
Publishing – Data and information that is published from within the organization carried by the intelligence visualization applications. Content should be collected and/or edited by anyone who is in a solid professional position, market and environment understanding and expertise to guarantee valid inputs.
Cascading – After collecting data flows, information streams, edited content, sales reports, institutional studies and any other intelligence content, anyone accessing intelligence, analyzing and or taking decisions in any way will have to ensure the proper cascading of the intelligence. Most of the time this would happen through established operational functions or reporting lines. Confusion and miss-interpretation are to be avoided and focus to be set, as well as goals clearly communicated, followed up upon and results collected (to be communicated again).
Activities & Measures – Home Depot’s Senior Vice President of Information Services, Ronald Griffin expresses the very value of intelligence in his own words like this: “Information in the absence of execution is overhead”. This is where “make intelligence actionable” kicks in.
Value Extraction – Actionable intelligence means producing business results. Business results should establish sustained value for any company or operation. To extract that value has to be the overall goal of the entire intelligence effort.
