Home About Services Blog TOC References Contact
Mar
04

The Boon and Bane of Competitive Intelligence

Tom Hawes Competitive Intelligence 2 comments

First, the bane …

In the Lord of the Rings story, the fellowship travels great distances and through many adventures trying to accomplish their mission. One of my favorite parts of the story is when they must travel through Moria, an underground dwarve colony and site of their great mines. Led by Durin, the dwarves settled “under the mountain” and began to build, explore and mine the riches that they found there. What they did not know (until it was too late) was the danger that dwelt in the depths. A Balrog. Durin’s Bane. The unspeakable terror that threatened them all. And it was coming for them.

A little dramatic, I suppose, but it is worth recognizing similar banes that befall the competitive intelligence community. That is, the “terrors” that hold the potential to derail all that we know to be true and worthwhile and to make our mission difficult, if not impossible. It is not hard to identify these things. It is only hard for us, collectively, to overcome them.

Here are the five banes that I think are most troublesome.

Read the rest of this entry

Competitive Intelligence, Marketing, professional competence
Aug
13

Competitive Intelligence: What Seems to Click

Tom Hawes Competitive Intelligence, Strategy Effectiveness 5 comments

QuestionerHow many times have you been asked about competitive intelligence? Someone sincerely wants to know what you do and how you might be helpful so they ask the obvious.

“What exactly do you do?”

I have tried many answers to this question. Sometimes I have given them a definition of competitive intelligence. Maybe I say something like, “Well, I work on analyzing all of the factors of the competitive environment to discern patterns which help people make decisions.” Usually they just stare at me. If they are friends, they manage a wan smile and I imagine them silently wishing me luck. Potential clients are often lost after my accurate but ineffective definition.

Another tack is giving them technical information about competitive intelligence. “I help companies employ models, information searches and other techniques to leverage primary and secondary research findings for competitive advantage,” I proudly announce. (Even my friends don’t smile at this one.)

Some kind people have given me advice to shorten (even more) the description of competitive intelligence. “Just say that you help them,” one succinct friend offered. “How about saying that you ‘make success possible’?” proffered another (this seemed a little grandiose to me).

Frankly, nothing seemed to work if you define “work” as consistently making an emotional and factual connection with a prospective client. That is, nothing worked until an experienced, older consultant gave me the magic words that he had received some years before. His advice was simply to start each definition or explanation this way.

“You know what it is like when …”

Read the rest of this entry

Competitive Intelligence, consulting, Marketing
Aug
10

The Failure of Competitive Intelligence Marketing

Tom Hawes Competitive Intelligence, Strategy Effectiveness 9 comments

iPhone“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” – American Marketing Association definition of Marketing

If you are an Apple fan, do you really care about their product development processes, the processors in their iPhone, the Unix roots of the Mac OS or the contractual arrangements between Apple and music industry players? Are things like their software testing techniques, documentation standards or even their clever advertising campaigns important? I doubt it.

If you are like me then you are more enamored with elegant products that bring you pleasure or utility in ways that are simple to grasp and use.

The benefits of using Apple products are always front and center. For instance, I can easily answer why using the AppStore for iPhone applications works for me. It solves a problem (avoiding complexity) while delivering value (thousands of free or inexpensive applications). Meanwhile the iPhone itself delivers on the promise of the mobile internet. Shockingly since so many other companies were trying to do the same thing for years, Apple got it right first. Well, maybe it is not so shocking. After all, Apple makes a habit of entering a market late but, and this is a big “but”, with superior understanding of the product and service characteristics which are prized by consumers.

For most of its history, Apple has mastered understanding consumers, translating their needs into hardware/software/service requirements and delivering a whole, satisfying experience. This is a marketing rather than a technology mindset.

This is exactly where (with exceptions, of course) that the Competitive Intelligence community fails to deliver.

Read the rest of this entry

business strategy, Competitive Intelligence, Marketing, Strategy Effectiveness
Jul
31

“Classified ultra-secret! Air Force generals only!”

Tom Hawes Competitive Intelligence, Organizational Development Add your comment

LemayFrom “Everything You Know is Wrong” by The Firesign Theatre (1974) – Comedy Group

Twenty five years ago I worked on a top secret military project for my company. It had been going on for some time when I started and, as far as I know, it is still going on. It was a fascinating application of technology that I would have loved to talk about with my family and friends. I was proud of what we were trying to do, my small role in the project and, of course, the ultimate application. Unsurprisingly, I am bound by employment agreement and federal law to not discuss what I did or the product that we were building.

Competitive intelligence is similarly difficult to talk about.

Just imagine that you have completed a CI project for your company or for a client. Because of your superior methods, uncommon insight and excellent timing, you uncover something that results in a significant competitive advantage for the company. Who are you going to tell? What are you allowed to say? And, what is the impact on your future work of these answers?

Therein lies the problem. It is hard to talk about CI successes.

Read the rest of this entry

Competitive Intelligence, Marketing, professional competence, SCIP
  • Archives

    • November 2010 (1)
    • September 2010 (4)
    • August 2010 (1)
    • July 2010 (3)
    • June 2010 (1)
    • May 2010 (5)
    • April 2010 (5)
    • March 2010 (4)
    • February 2010 (4)
    • January 2010 (6)
    • December 2009 (2)
    • November 2009 (2)
    • October 2009 (7)
    • September 2009 (6)
    • August 2009 (11)
    • July 2009 (9)
    • June 2009 (12)
    • May 2009 (6)
    • April 2009 (4)
    • March 2009 (12)
    • February 2009 (5)
  • Categories

    • Competitive Intelligence (94)
    • Early Warning (6)
    • Maintenance (1)
    • Organizational Development (13)
    • Strategy Effectiveness (56)
  • Recent Posts

    • The Hard Sell – Strategy to an Experimenter
    • Can You Answer This Question?
    • Competitive Intelligence’s Just Do Its
    • You Know What It is Like When …
    • The Three Basic Competitive Intelligence Questions
  • Tag Cloud

    alignment analysis analytical techniques Apple business strategy case studies change Chris Zook CI techniques Competitive Intelligence competitive priorities consulting decision making Early Warning effective presentations failure signs future focus gap analysis HP integrity leaks management Marketing Michael Porter news people product marketing professional competence SCIP senior management SMB strategic imperatives strategy strategy;report card;vision;change artist Strategy Effectiveness strategy evaluation strategy implementation substitutes success measures survey SWOT tactics tools trademarks trap question
Strategically Thinking · coogee theme · 2008
RSS Feed · WordPress · TOP