Eventually, the goal is to create a clear view of all the aspects of market by thorough research and analysis. The analyzed data will lead to a new understanding of the current and future situation. Understanding that, has an impact on the business: Vision, mission, strategy, planning, operations and decision-making.

The more an intelligence team is seen as trusted advisors (internal consultants) the better they can play this role.

But how clear are we in our answers?

The weather forecast.

Imagine you are planning your summer barbecue party coming Saturday. An outdoor event for which you have invited 75 of your very best friends. In other words a big party.

Beside all the planning and logistics to make it an unforgettable event you want to know one other detail: the weather forecast. Will it be blue-sky, sunshine and warm? Or raining and cold?

Market Intelligence people have the tendency to analyze the entire market, each and every detail and provide a deck of 80 slides with all they know.

So, the approach to the weather forecast done by a market intelligence professional will be like this:

He shows a map of your country or region and will say: let me explain: There is a high pressure area in the north, blowing eastwards with a speed of 18 knots. Current temperature there is 23 Celsius. Slightly west of that is a rain zone which moves further west in the coming 24 hours with a speed of 23 knots. This rain-zone is impacted by the low pressure area which moving to the north. (speed 10 knots) The pressure is only 960 milliBar, so don’t worry. The average temperature however is 14C at the moment. The thunderstorm currently active East of the lakes will drift slowly South and will influence the temperature on south side of the river. The high altitude jet stream wind will blow from west to east moving the high pressure (1100 milli bar) towards the islands on the south coast.

This data (not even information for many of us) is than often supported by radar images and charts of past patterns.

“On the radar screen it is obvious that the clouds will provide snow in the North, but only if the low pressure area will come closer in the coming 8 hours. And that will happen if the speed remain 56kts.” Continues the market intelligence profession. And it keeps on going. 80 slides!

You will look at him and ask again: Is there rain or sunshine in my backyard coming Saturday?

That is basically the only question you want to have answered.

The most weather forecasters understand that. They will tell you: Yes there will be sunshine, 27C coming Saturday. Than, beside that basic answer to the question, he or she will explain in simple terms why the sun will be shining. Supporting data and logic.

That is what Market Intelligence people need to do. Listen carefully to the questions and try to give that basic answer.

The question: will there be rain or sunshine is a binary question. The answer is yes or no. In market and competitive intelligence such a binary question will be followed by open questions to get a better understanding. But even for the weather forecast open questions should follow. How warm will it be? How strong is the wind? From what direction will the wind blow? Will it be a clear blue sky or will there be some scattered clouds? If so, when, how many? Etc.

Same for the intelligence. The first question may be: is there a market opportunity for my products? Or will the new competitor be a threat for my business?

The answer to the first question could be; Yes, there is a market opportunity.

And we will explain in simple terms why we have come to the conclusion that there will be an opportunity. Looking at the market trends (people see the need for the product and would like to buy it), economic drivers (there is money to buy, there is a clear business benefit for these products) and other parameters that could show the reason why there is a market opportunity.

But than the underlying (open) questions will pop up:

-       How big is that opportunity?

-       For which market?

-       When will the market take of?

-       How to sell this? Go to market models?

-       Etc.

I will write about that in my next article.

Good luck with your intelligence.

————————————————————————————————————- 

About the author.

Joost Drieman is director Market and Business Intelligence at Cisco Systems, Inc. since January 2006.

Before Cisco Joost had senior management positions at several high tech companies in Europe and the USA. He also did consultancy work for the EC, DG Infso.  In total over 25 years international experience in strategy, business development, intelligence and management.

Joost represents Cisco as trustee at the Marketing Science Institute (USA) and is member of: European Marketing Academics, Esomar, Institute for Study of Business Markets (USA) and European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management. 

He is visiting lecturer at some the business schools in Europe and the USA to teach market intelligence. Currently he does research on the ROI of Market Intelligence.

Joost regularly speaks at conferences. He is a dynamic, charismatic presenter, interacts with the audience and has the ability to explain difficult topics in an easy understandable way, with a touch of humor.

Education:

BSc in electronics (NL), MBA in strategy (magna cum laude) from UAMS (B), Management at the Institute of Business Science (NL), Corporate Strategy at Harvard (USA), Market Intelligence, Wisconsin University, (USA), Data modeling, analysis and statistics, SAS (USA)

Finally, he is married to Ann with 3 children and has resided in Belgium since 1989.

Organizer: Frost & Sullivan

Event: 17th Annual Competitive Intelligence 2010: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange. Strategic Competitive Insights to Propel Profit and Growth

Location: Richmond

Country: Canada

Link: http://www.tsnn.com/profile.asp?EventID=19262&CatID=30&partner=techweb

Indeed knowledge managers definitely have an inward view about their function although they seem to agree outside data or web data would benefit their company knowledge repository. As a matter of fact, many knowledge managers I discussed with, know intelligence practitioners within their firm and have been discussing some solutions to aggregate outside data with internal data.

I noticed a similar shift couple of years ago when few business intelligence managers mentioned they consider competitive intelligence as a part of their discipline.

As a result, the intelligence vocabulary gets richer although a little fuzzier. Maybe you’ve noticed some expressions including sales intelligence, biotech intelligence, technical intelligence, customer intelligence not to mention market intelligence.

What is your opinion on that topic, how do you define your discipline today and how do you envision it will evolve over time?

Chris.

The first keynote speaker, Stephane Garelli, Director of the world competitiveness center, gave a well documented opening speech using his unique voice and a good sense of humour  to present the way the economic world is evolving and what the future holds. It was a fascinating moment for the audience. We had a break from our day jobs to be engaged  and have a better understanding of the current financial crisis and the impact the developed ,emerging markets and of the developing countries.Garelli mentioned the mandatory increase  in taxes on both individuals and the corporate world. The impact of the Asian boom on our daily consumptions habits, for example the production of one kilo of meat requires 15,000 litres of water? With an explosion of the Asian demand for meat in the next 20 years, it is likely that governments from the developed countries will need to regulate their own consumption to avoid water shortage.

Peter Richardson, Nokia’s Head of Strategic Intelligence, gave a very good presentation about market intelligence activities within his company. Peter explained that the main issue for companies like Nokia is not to identify the common trends concerning consumer’s habits, but really to forecast the pace at which they will impact our daily lives. The major trends like web social medias or tactile interfaces have been identified very early.However, Nokia did not understand how fast they would penetrate the market and how radically they change consumer’s behaviour. It is a difficult challenge, for leading brands, to anticipate the radical changes brought by new players breaking the usual market rules i.e. Apple with iphone, Google with web based apps.

Another speaker I enjoyed was Joost Drieman, Cisco’s Market and Business Intelligence Europe director. Joost Drieman is a brilliant professional with incredible communication skills. What captured my attention was his“don’t look at the competition” message. He explained it is much more important to understand consumer’s needs in order to create new markets than monitoring the daily moves of the competition. He stated that Cisco became a world leader, by focusing on customer satisfaction and providing innovative ideas, instead of copying existing ones. There’s a discussion about this subject going on Ning CI platform (see here), don’t hesitate to express your viewpoint on this subject matter. Joost Drieman provided information on how he manages his team, assisting them to become an internal McKinsey. MI people are asked to avoid basic answers to incoming demands, but rather provide valuable insight and high-level analysis, sometimes leading to unanswered problems. “Don’t just be good, be excellent” is the rallying cry of M. Drieman, who definitely sets the standard of market intelligence at the highest level.

A lot of valuable speakers brought their ideas to the table, like Daphne TOMLINSON from Siemens Building technologies CI team, Arik JOHNSON from Aurora WDC or Christian FREY from SIKA. It’s real food for thought for all CI and MI practitioners. Congratulations to all of them who decided to share their best practices. If you want to suggest a city for the next SCIP Europe meeting, please send an email to the Scip team.

We can’t wait for the next highly informative, educative and entertaining forum.
I will leave you with great words of Alvin Toffler : The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
 

Over the past couple of years you have come to know me as the founder and owner of Markintell.com, a regular speaker at SCIP and SCIA events, publisher of various intelligence related works and (some of you at least) a CI colleague and friend.

With a very recent career change I have decided to transfer Markintell.com into the hands of a very professional, traditional and well embedded CI solutions provider - Digimind. I was just not in the position to contribute enough anymore as my private live and career options shifted quite substantially (incl. relocation, new industry and job position).

Sad and nostalgic at first, both the personal changes and the new ownership for Markintell.com excite me now very much as you, the user, will be served much better from now on with valuable, frequent content and I can concentrate entirely on the new field.

As a member of the Board of Directors of SCIP I will still remain well connected with CI and continue to serve the global CI community. Especially within my function as SCIP’s Chairman of the International Advisory Committee (IAC).

Please feel free to follow me on the established business networks, contact me in any regard (both via www.thie.me) and receive my gratitude for having been an excellent audience to me on Markintell.com.

Finally, please continue to support the new owner of the site with ideas, suggestions, contributions and challenges to the site will continue to grow along your needs as CI professionals.

My best wishes for your future both personally and professionally, Jens Thieme (www.thie.me)

“Intelligence education is currently provided through a variety of programs, institutions, and degrees. This list focuses on those educational institutions that offer courses, certificates, certification and degrees in competitive intelligence or intelligence analysis as of September 2009. The primary criteria for inclusion is that the organization provides accredited intelligence training in information or analysis. Preference is given to organizations with an .edu designation (US) or are recognized institutions of higher education….” - writes Bonnie Hohof of SCIP in her summary.

This updated list will also be discussed at the Swiss Competitive Intelligence Association’s (SCIA) 2009 Education Day September 29 in Zurich.

Maybe this example can be picked up and further developed in other countries? Competitive Intelligence as a government supported entity reaching out to other economies shows clearly the growing importance of CI in Europe.

Keeping an edge in a competitive intelligence profession Session Speakers and Panel Discussion Participants:

On site:
Monika Giese (Switzerland), Toni Nagle (United Kingdom), Rainer Michaeli (Germany), Stefan Schuppisser (Switzerland)

TeleCon:
Alessandro Comai (Spain), Bonnie Hohof (US) and John Prescott (US)

Details and registration at the SCIA website.

Webinar Outline

• GIA MI Roadmap
  • 6 Key Success Factors for Intelligence
  • 5 Levels towards World Class Intelligence Operations
• Company Cases
  • Case Vopak: Building a Sophisticated Intelligence Operation with the Help of GIA’s World-Class MI Framework (René Loozen)
  • Case Ciba (Part of BASF): Taking an Existing Intelligence Operation to the Next Level (Jens Thieme)

White Paper Executive Summary

The World Class MI Framework created by Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) has been developed to help organizations achieve three types of benefits from a systematic intelligence operation:

• Better and faster decisions
• Time and cost savings
• Organizational learning and new ideas

The World Class MI Framework builds on six Key Success Factors that an organization needs to develop in parallel in order to bring their MI operation to a level where it compares to the most advanced companies in the world. The Key Success Factors are defined as follows:

1. Intelligence Scope: Start from small and redefine the Scope along the way
2. Intelligence Process: Design and implement MI Processes that are integrated with decision making, i.e. Decision Point Intelligence
3. Intelligence Deliverables: Design and produce concrete MI Deliverables
4. Intelligence Tools: Adopt a specialized MI Tool that enables global sharing of intelligence
5. Intelligence Organization: Build a results-driven Organization with optimized resourcing
6. Intelligence Culture: Create an intelligence Culture in your organization

The World Class MI Framework further divides each six Key Success Factors of MI development into five levels of maturity, where the levels range from “Firefighters” (Level 1, the beginners), to “Futurists” (Level 5, the most advanced organizations with regards to the level and maturity of their intelligence activity). Ideally, all success factors will be developed in parallel, since they are highly inter-dependent.

However, most organizations find it easiest to first build up the “technical” MI capabilities, while the softer success factors such as MI organization and MI culture, often lag behind.

How the World Class MI Framework can be leveraged for successful MI development in practice is demonstrated in the end of the paper through two case examples, Vopak and Ciba (Part of BASF).

Find more details and direct downloads here.

While Markintell.com only allowed specially assigned category authors to contribute in several topic areas we have now changed the Markintell.com homepage into an open blog for everyone who wants to speak up about Competitive Intelligence, Market Research & Analysis, Knowledge Management and other related fields.

Registration is a snap and you can be on your way to show the global CI community what you have up your sleeve as a professional.

Once registered (allow up to a day to be approved) you can get started to post right on Markintell.com’s homepage blog. Assign a suitable catagory (or we will do this for you in case you forgot) so people can find your blog entries.

A couple of rules apply but that should not be much different from any other business website you contribute to.

And now get started and have fun, registration is here:

http://www.markintell.com/register-with-markintell/