Competitive businesses currently have three levers of action to become profitable agents with a long-term vision. The three are intrinsically linked and form a prominent part of the services we offer our clients. Just as the digital transformation of a company cannot be understood without properly activating its Customer Experience, this remains incomplete if competitive intelligence in the market in which it operates is not addressed appropriately; and this, in turn, to close the circle, finds in digitization one of its constant vectors for increasing possibilities and turnover.
Today we will focus on the third of these items, competitive intelligence, and we will do so with the help of three infographics that detail what this discipline is, provide general guidelines on how to approach it, and even give us a glimpse of its history to understand that, although it is a subject that is more in vogue than ever, its roots go back almost 500 years.
The first of these infographics was created by the consulting firm Fuld, and it takes a bold and disruptive approach to defining competitive intelligence by first defining what it is NOT. This is a way of suggesting that it is a discipline that is sometimes confused with practices that are not always legitimate, and certainly not as effective. For example, it argues that it is NOT "espionage," but rather legitimate tactical and strategic research to identify threats and opportunities. And it is certainly NOT "a crystal ball," but rather an alert management process to provide corporations with accurate assessments of both the short- and long-term reality.
What else is competitive intelligence NOT? Well, it is certainly NOT a "simple Google search," because it involves identifying competitivegaps that enable a strategy to be determined. And for those who think of ready-made recipes, NO, it is not that either: it comes in many formats, from the most structured to the most informal. And in any case, it involves work teams in a two-way process, because it is NOT the work of a single intelligent person, and it is useless if it does not generateinsightsthat will be heard by anyone.
Trying to link competitive intelligence solely to technology is also a mistake, because it is NOT the result of acquiring new technologies, but rather of critical analysis driven by the upper echelons of organizations to make sense of the information obtained. For this very reason, it is NOT about how each company sees itself in relation to the market: either you see yourself from the outside, or it is not intelligence. Furthermore, it is NOT a task that can be reduced to spreadsheets, because it requires qualitative analysis, and it is certainly NOT a fad, hence the important historical nuance we pointed out above. It may be a trend, but it is not the result of someone's whim or happy accident.
The second infographic comes from the University of Michigan and is entitled "Competitive Intelligence Step by Step," which is precisely what it aims to do: summarize in just nine steps what a company that really wants to get started in this area should do. The process begins with a word that is both loved and hated, eagerly awaited and feared in equal measure by business managers: brainstorming. However, this is not for the sake of debate, but with clear objectives: what words define the industry? Which companies can be taken as examples? Once this is clear, we can move on to the second step: analyzing the problem by breaking down what we want to address into as many pieces as necessary.
Step three: ask yourself "who cares" about your sector, so you can find out where to get the right information, and then conduct consistent research in a wide range of industry databases, academic articles, and open sources on the Internet. This research should also be supplemented with "hot contacts," from researchers to experts to association leaders: talk, talk, and talk some more to get past the halfway point of this competitive intelligence process.
Next, or rather during all the previous steps, it is necessary to keep a detailed record of all the stages: who you have spoken to, where the data has been taken from, what the sources of information have been, and that everything is well organized. Only then can we move on to the seventh step, which is simply "search more," a simple antidote to the syndrome of retiring prematurely. Have you really searched everything? It's time to compile and analyze, so that we can then establish the alert mechanisms that allow us to know and identify all the new developments in our competitive environment.
The third and final infographic, and perhaps the most surprising, bears the signature of another specialized company (Aqute). Through atimeline of notable milestones, it helps us trace the origins of competitive intelligence back almost 500 years. Specifically, in 1570, when the Fugger banking family decided to launch their "newsletter" (in the format of the time) on the political and economic events in Europe that could most affect their clients' investments. It took a little over 300 years for the term "competitive intelligence" to appear in black and white, which happened in 1876 at a civil engineering institute during a discussion about the design of carriages.
Between these two historic moments, memorable events took place, such as that of the Jesuit priest François d'Entrecolles, who in 1712 had the courage to distinguish himself as a "trusted foreigner" in the "secret city" of Chinese porcelain, Kin Techen. Once he achieved that status, he took advantage of the opportunity to gather information on manufacturing techniques and send it to Europe. Or the recruitment of English industrialist John Holker by the French Trade Office in 1756, which aimed to develop textile machinery and attract the talent of English workers, as well as to set up an Economic Intelligence office.
Two years can be considered milestones in the modern era of competitive intelligence: 1986, when the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals was created; and 1996, when the United States passed legislation against espionage based on the activities of the Chinese population in that country. Which is somewhat ironic... 284 years after a monk introduced to Europe the knowledge acquired in a "secret city" of the Yellow Giant.
Three infographics to understand what it is and what it is not, how it is defined and how it develops, and where and why it has its roots, something that is a trend but not a fad and that is vital for business development: competitive intelligence.
Photo byGiammarco BoscaroonUnsplash
