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Competitive Intelligence (CI) Blog

Excuses, Excuses

Here we look at some reasons or excuses companies use to not develop a Competitive Intelligence capability or to improve upon what they have in place.A. We do have a competitive intelligence capability
in place = It doesn’t seem to be of much benefit to us:

This situation may be caused when CI is conducted by a number of people within the company. Thus data and the interpretation of data is effectively summarized, co-ordinated and shared among key decision-makers within the company.

Another problem may be the person or persons conducting CI. If CI, or what passes for CI, is conducted by a low-level person or by someone for whom CI is a secondary responsibility. In these situations, CI is not given the time and budget necessary to be effective or to influence the decisions of senior management.

Finally, a major problem is what passes for CI. For some companies, collecting the ads, brochures or websites of competitors is the extent of their CI work. Many others focus exclusively on the prices charged by their competitors. They never go beyond that and, as a result, they don’t understand how their competitors think, which segment of the market they’re targeting, their cost of doing business, the service bundles that come with (or don’t come with) the prices charged,  their profit margin, or whether they are successful or not.

B.  CI is too expensive =  We know all about the competition

All too often, companies, or rather their senior management, who are confident they know all about their competition and the overall competitive environment are the ones who are blindsided by unexpected events. “We didn’t see it coming” is the plaintive cry from the senior management of companies who are run out of business or are forced to severely downsize because they did not see changes in the competitive environment like new technologies or non-traditional competitors.

A well-financed group of CI professionals play a key role in the success of companies in highly competitive environments. They take into consideration not only how the competition is reacting to changes technologies, demographics and legislation but can also determine their level of success and the challenges they pose to their competitors. They also analyze the impact of non-traditional competitors and new business models are challenging their industry and measures to counteract or exploit such changes.

This is where the value of Competitive Intelligence is derived.

C. We are looking for 100% certainty = We would rather
have no information

It is true that CI research does not always provide 100% of the data demanded by senior management. Not research of any kind can do that. But it is also true that CI research does provide very important pieces to the competitive environment puzzle. Analysis, knowledge of the industry, and being open-minded about developing technologies and new business models – or how existing technologies can be used in innovative ways – is what a CI professional uses to bring together different pieces of information, to synthesize them and to create a complete picture of the competitive environment, or even a number of possible future scenarios.

There is always uncertainty in business. Competitive Intelligence can provide senior managers with an understanding on how different decisions can impact their company and industry, and in so doing provides them with guidance in their decision-making.

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