How to strengthen and enforce the centralized intelligence function
From Starting a Competitive Intelligence Function by the Competitive Intelligence Foundation you can read the entire chapter Harmonizing Competitive Intelligence, by Jens Thieme - Head of Global Market & Competitive Intelligence - here at MarkIntell.com.
Fragmentation of intelligence activities does not necessarily mean that an organization is weak or flawed in any intelligence activity. Our company has produced some outstanding intelligence over the decades using great tools and resulting in solid business value.
As mentioned before were are obtaining a hybrid intelligence solution where concepts, strategy, infrastructure and support are provided by the corporate Marketing & Sales Office but market research and analysis are conducted within the business units.
Key Intelligence Topics (although not labeled this way) are being generated within clearly defined business plan and other marketing planning processes.
On one hand this ensures that the KIT’s are served without connection to specialized expertise and speed can certainly be a factor as well. On the flip side we in fact do continue to develop our intelligence capacities and expertise at varying speeds and qualities. Steering against this potential value dilution and the missing transparency we have recognized the need of mutual processes, education and routines.
Our business plans and marketing processes for example do include various major building blocks where intelligence tasks are included. Understanding the market place and developing business strategies are just two very important major mile stones all marketing and sales efforts have to accomplish. The very basis for these marketing elements is our intelligence life cycle.
As a recurring cycle of activities that are delegated to professionals based on their consistent role profiles we always keep spinning the wheel of setting business targets, identifying intelligence needs, acquiring suitable information and data, analyze and produce intelligence that is then being disseminated via defined processes.
But having processes, techniques, technology and guidelines in place are not enough by a margin. It all can only produce real business value if used responsibly, actively and timely. Marketers have to learn the importance of their intelligence work and extend its impact. They also have to inherit the art to craft actionable intelligence. Those are some of the future steps (see below) we have to take after fixing the basics.
In order to influence the way intelligence is done and more state-of-the-art techniques and tools are utilized as well as to recognize current educational needs we started to involve ourselves in real world marketing challenges. The closer we now move to the core of marketing activities the more transparent becomes the need of valid, decision-supporting intelligence. And, not surprising to us, marketers who learn about additional options to understand their external business environment better more and more open up to all intelligence activities.
For example: deep dives into the brains of external marketers way down the value chain potentially unveil opportunities these companies want to satisfy as much as we could become their partner to succeed in this quest. In other examples we have helped to materialize new sources to our colleagues to develop just another edge for their business cases. There is no manager in the world who would not appreciate to be served additional ammunition to bring their point across when presenting to executives.
CI can be their hero if offered timely and reliably!.
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Harmonizing Competitive Intelligence