By its nature as a service, Competitive Intelligence is a requested activity. That is, a senior management sponsor asks a question about the competitive environment and the CI professional responds. Many experienced people will tell you to stick closely to your senior management sponsor. And that would be right. Nevertheless, there will come a time when you (as the CI professional) will have the professional confidence and organizational credibility to lead.
This is the time to go on the offense with competitive intelligence.
“Going on the offense” simply means that you will begin to proactively formulate activities, plans and recommendations that are congruent with everything that you have already done. Assuming that you have laid the foundation properly, you should have a sense of the opportunities and boundaries within the organization. More than that, you have established relationships that allow you to speculate about the effectiveness of company strategy. Multiple leaders will have noticed your contributions and it will not surprise them that you can do more.
There are three important ways to proceed.
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