Ineffective Competitive Intelligence – A 6th Reason

In the last post, I presented 5 reasons why Competitive Intelligence is generally ineffective, or at least much less effective than it could be in bringing about positive business change.

I’m grateful to Arthur Weiss, Founder and Managing Partner of AWARE (A competitive intelligence firm in the U.K.), for his comment regarding the need for Competitive Intelligence departments or teams to show their positive benefits. In his words:

“In fact I think that there is another reason why CI is often not seen as effective. Consider the following scenario:

The CI team are doing a fantastic job, getting good intelligence to all who need it. This intelligence is acted on, and the company succeeds as a result. The question is: who gets the credit for the success? Is it the CI professional or the decision maker? I believe that often (usually?) it will be the decision maker who is praised for their insight and wisdom, rather than the CI analyst who gave them the wherewithal to make the decision. So CI is not really valued in the company - and may even be seen as a wasteful overhead, if the decision makers who use it don't realize or admit to themselves that their brilliance is because of the great CI they receive.

Now consider that a mistake is made - based on poor intelligence. The decision maker will not want to take the credit, and instead will seek a scapegoat to blame. Guess who? So in the second case, the CI department gets blamed for the failure, whereas in the 1st case they don't get the credit for the success.

Does this sound like your company? If it does, you know what you need to do: blow your own trumpet! So a 6th reason why CI is not effective is that the CI team fail to communicate what they contribute. I guess this could come under "communication problems" but I think that it is in fact so important that it should really be seen in a class of its own.”

In my opinion, everyone in the company has to show positive benefit, and the CI department is no different. I echo Arthur’s recommendation to stand up and display your positive results. Don’t be shy. Don’t let your hard work go unnoticed.

Thanks again to Arthur for his contribution. It is this cross-dialogue and exchange of thoughts that will propel the effectiveness of competitive intelligence to higher levels.

Let’s consider this topic an open forum. The invitation is extended to all to provide other reasons or examples of solutions to the problem of ineffective intelligence. Leave a comment here or send me an idea (cdalley@primary-intel.com)