Effective Competitive Intelligence – Misunderstanding of Your Efforts

In my last post, I started talking again about effective competitive intelligence. Again, my definition of effectiveness is:

– Strengthen your company’s position
• How is our value proposition perceived?
• What is the competition doing?
• Which industry-wide best practices will truly apply?
– Discover new markets
• What is possible with new technologies?
• Where should we steer the company?
– Develop new products/services/solutions
• What problems do our clients experience that we can address?

Do you know what is frustrating?

Lots of things.

That wasn’t very enlightening. In fact, it was fairly useless. But, to salvage the moment, I’ll let you know something that I see much too often.

Over time, a very common frustration in business has always been, “Why doesn’t so-and-so appreciate my efforts?” This thought is not limited to any one department, but has certainly be uttered its share in the intelligence world.

Mostly, the thought is, “I did really great work on this intelligence brief. Why won’t the executives look at it? Why won’t my manager show this off? Why is everyone ignoring my stuff?”

If you have had a similar moment, you’re not alone. In fact, in the intelligence world, this is a very common feeling. I’ll offer a suggestion and you may not like it, but I’m going to place some of the responsibility on your own shoulders.

The primary cause of your problem is that you are not taking the time to understand the world of your target recipients. Your hope is that people will appreciate your work on its own merits. If you build it, they will come. But Shoeless Joe hasn’t wandered through the cornfield to find your ballpark of a brief.

Let’s not take anything away from your work quality. I’m sure that your results were prepared from thorough research and the presentation is first-rate. Unfortunately, that only matters so much. In brief, if nobody can understand your work, the benefit and value are going to be marginalized, at best.

This very topic was the subject of a recent Primary Intelligence webinar. If you want the full scoop, download the recorded webinar presentation HERE.


The most effective thing you can do is start to look outside the needs of the people with whom you are most closely associated. Otherwise, you probably have a view of your company needs that is way too myopic.

If you want product management to understand and appreciate your work, take time to appreciate their specific problems and intelligence needs.

Then, discuss your ability to fill their needs and sell them on the idea of creating an intelligence flow process that appeals to them.

Of course, the final step of the process is to deliver at least according to their expectations. Over-deliver if possible. But that term is so passé. Valuable, but passé.

After you have won a champion or two in your target departments, you can start the process of sharing your pet projects and specialties. Once you have their attention, you’ll start to earn their respect. That’s the time to show what you have done.

Need a little help with the process? Let’s chat. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)