Making Competitive Intelligence Effective with Cross-functional Teams (Part 3 of 4)

This is the third in a four-part installment of thoughts on making competitive intelligence effective in your organization. Wasn’t sure I had this much information on tap. Then again, I probably don’t have a shortage of words anywhere else in my life. Why should this be any different?

On the topic of making Competitive Intelligence effective, I have observed a number of companies over time that have produced extraordinary results through innovative use of the information. It is my experience that these successful companies do the following:

1. Have a commitment to making decisions with intelligence


2. Create a cross-functional team, including leaders from Sales, Marketing, Product Development, Finance and the Executive Board


3. Determine the most effective routes to generating effective competitive intelligence


4. Involve a 3rd-party to provide guidance (This is not a shameless plug. I’ll explain later)


5. Provide a strong voice to evangelize the competitive intelligence


6. Demand accountability of leaders based on their willingness to consider and implement changes based on the intelligence initiatives

In the last few posts, (8/1, 8/6) I have talked about the first three points in the bullet list above. I’ll talk a little more about the fourth and fifth points today.

Involve a 3rd-party vendor
Eat our own dog food. Drink our own champagne. Breathe our own exhaust. Doesn’t matter how you say it. You live inside your company. Objectivity is very difficult under the best conditions and hardly anyone works under the best conditions.

It is possible to conduct your own intelligence initiative in-house and some types of intelligence (web scraping, financial reports, other factual information) can be done efficiently by your own employees.

But, don’t underestimate the importance of an unbiased voice. This is not a shameless plug for a company like Primary Intelligence. Rather, successful companies I have observed have acknowledged that they have internal biases, agendas, perceptions, etc… and that an objective viewpoint of the marketplace provides value that simply isn’t possible from internal sources.

You might involve a consultant from the beginning of the process. You might contract with a data collection company to gather the intelligence. But, don’t summarily dismiss the benefits that might be brought to the table by a 3rd-party vendor.

Provide a strong voice
Who will be the leader that will preach the necessary changes in the company? Ideally, that voice will come from the cross-functional group. If it is someone else in the company, invite them to become part of the cross-functional group.

Any number of business publications can provide mountains of information on leadership and change management. I’ll leave it to you to find the right voice.

And, if you want to chat, let’s chat. Post a response, call (801-838-9600 x5050) or send an email (cdalley@primary-intel.com)