Market Intelligence for the Strategic Planning Process – Case Examples
The newest GIA (Global Intelligence Alliances) White Paper focuses on strategic intelligence. In 5 strong case studies the authors present a broad view of the importance to base strategic planning on top notch intelligence.
Each case story first introduces the background for linking Market Intelligence with the strategic planning process in the company. The interviewed executives also discuss internal case examples on how MI activities have provided very concrete input to strategic decision-making situations.
Contents:
LUVATA – Integration of Marketing Intelligence in annual planning incl. risk management
ORANGE UK – From stick fetching towards intelligence
SHELL EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION – Painting the future industry landscape
ABB – Intelligence input to strategy - a masterpiece of work
LASSILA & TIKANOJA – Entering the Swedisch market through a strategic market intelligence project
Lessons learned that are explained in great detail contain:
- Investing in sufficient MI resources
- Managing industry complexity on an appropriate level
- Emphasizing internal communication
- Intelligence Briefing Packs
- Scenario Analysis Workshops
- Competitor Reactions Analysis
- Interaction with key decision makers
- Making the link explicit between business drivers and technology developments
- Developing a forward-looking plan based on strategic insights
- Willingness and able to change based on the requirements of the business environment
- Become a preferred business partner to management
- Deliver professional intelligence
- Communication and customer awareness
- Ask the stupid questions
- Use local consultants and market researchers to get the Market Intelligence
- Use consultants and market researchers in an active manner
Abstracts:
Luvata identified the solar energy trend early on
Through systematic market signals monitoring, Luvata has been able to identify the trend towards solar energy early on - the resulting increase in the raw materials demand in the suncell industry therefore didn’t come as a surprise to the company. Having identified this emerging trend early enough, Luvata has been able to intensify its product development in this segment, which has helped the company to get a sizeable market share of the growing business.
Business Intelligence Framework for Orange UK’s Strategy Process
It takes time to establish and a solidify a corporate intelligence operation. Beurschgens highlights the stepwise nature of this development process: “Initially, we had little structure in our intelligence activities. Most assignments were conducted on an ad-hoc basis, using very basic information sources.”
“It was a bit like stick-fetching”, Beurschgens describes. “A manager says he needs something and someone tries to deliver that, without knowing much about the purpose of the request, let alone the larger context. Over time, we have developed a more structured approach by digging deeper into the end users’ true intelligence needs, and by utilizing an increasing variety of information sources and analysis methods”, he continues.
Intelligence and the Strategy Process at Shell Exploration & Production
At Shell Exploration & Production, Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI) is one of the key ingredients to the company’s strategy process. Understanding is required of both the prevailing technological trends as well as the long term future developments in order to come up with a comprehensive, forward-looking view of the company’s competitive landscape. The strategy process is supported by CTI that addresses topics such as business needs, market dynamics, key players, and in-house competencies.
Says Manjula Nadarajah, Senior Strategic Market Analyst at Shell Global Solutions: “Our intelligence activities provide us with the backup that we need to prioritize our strategic moves and to ensure that their timing will be optimized. Shell has a strong history in systematically analyzing its business environment, and we are strong believers in business planning that is supported by carefully analyzed information .”
Structured Market Intelligence for ABB ’s Strategy Process – Framework
Getting to work to improve ABB’s Business Intelligence operation, Niederer and his team developed a BI model that was based on three different frameworks. These frameworks serve to ensure that ABB has a continuous process in place to cater to the BI needs of different end users, while at the same time maintaining an umbrella view of the business environment of the entire organization.
Intelligence and the strategy process at Lassila & Tikanoja
“Our existing strategy is very much focused on expansion through new investments and acquisitions,
along with organic growth”, says Henri Turunen, Director, International Business Development
at Lassila & Tikanoja. “The purpose of our strategic intelligence activities is naturally to
support these objectives”, Turunen continues.
This White Paper impressively compliments GIA’s White Paper from 2007: “Market Intelligence for the Strategic Planning Process”.
Anyone in the Market & Competitive Intelligence profession - practitioners, experts, scholars, concultants, executives and competitive intelligence users will benefit greatly from the very practical insights of these White Paper issues.
The Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) is a global network of business research and Competitive Intelligence (CI) consulting companies. The series of GIA White Papers is a means for the GIA and its clients and partner companies to share knowledge on key topics within the field of Competitive Intelligence. Please feel free to give us feedback on the White Papers by sending email to info@globalintelligence.com.
With friendly permission of the Global Intelligence Alliance you can download the white paper here and even discuss its content and findings in our dedicated Intelligence Theory Discussion blog.