Producing ROI from your Competitive Intelligence - "How To:

If you have every spent any time talking with me about Competitive Intelligence, you know that I am a big proponent of intelligence programs that produce revenue. So many companies launch an intelligence program with the intention of "understanding the competitive landscape" but, this is hardly a focused goal.

Over time, the intelligence program expands (bloats) to include as many intelligence categories as possible. Soon, the company hires a "librarian" and implements content management systems just to keep all of the information organized. Corporate personnel are happy because they can ask just about any question and get an answer. CI personnel are happy because they have a job that keeps them busy and security for the future.

But, my argument has always centered on, "Why do the work if you can't justify the ROI?" In other words, Competitive Intelligence has to be a driving force for strategic corporate planning. The Competitive Intelligence group should be able to tell the executives, "At a high degree of confidence, if we do 'X' in market 'Y', we would expect a 10% increase in market share and revenues."

This is so much better than knowing "how many square feet are in our competitors' new warehouse in Cedar Rapids" or "what color is our competitor's intranet login page?"

How do you determine ROI criteria for your Competitive Intelligence? I'll give you some suggestions:

1) Top-line Revenue
–Will this intelligence create new revenue opportunities?
–Will we take away sales from the competition?
–Will our existing accounts stay longer and be more profitable?
2) Bottom-line
–Can we be more efficient or learn best practices?
–Are there better ways to manage our processes?
3) Application
–How easily will we be able to act on these data?

If your CI efforts match up well with these criteria, you are probably pretty advanced. If your initiatives serve other purposes, they may still be valid, but ROI probably isn't your goal. If you need some help determining the ROI potential of your efforts, talk to Primary Intelligence. We're here to help.

And, if you don't know what the purpose of your CI initiatives are, you need to start asking. Or, looking for another job. If you can't show potential return on your efforts, you run the risk of becoming as valuable as your data; interesting, but worthless.

Please, add to the ROI criteria list. Post a comment or call me (801.838.9600 x5050, cdalley@primary-intel.com)

Self-service Competitive Intelligence

Last fall, on behalf of Primary Intelligence, I co-authored an article for a local magazine on self-service intelligence. The main idea was to emphasize how to put the right intelligence in the right places at the right time to make sure that your company is capitalizing on the right markets as efficiently as possible.

For example:

Analytics
The first step you need to take to leave your safe harbor is to evaluate your data collection processes and your analytic capabilities. What is the use of collecting information if you can’t interpret and act upon it with predictable outcomes? Successful analytics processes help to evaluate the quality of the initial data and determine which portions reinforce the central goals of the organization. The usefulness of the information and analytics can be determined by its ability to support the company goals.

Customization
Simplicity is the key here; companies should evaluate different solutions to determine the most effective collaboration tools. Special care should be taken to ensure that sensitive data is easily accessible to all required personnel while protecting it from exposure to outside parties. The fundamental requirements of sharing sensitive information must address the establishment of trust and the need to enable users to find and make sense of all available information by:
*Enabling users to understand the reliability, accuracy, and urgency of the information.
*Empowering owners to retain control of information and precisely determine its access and use.
*Logging and auditing who, what, and why information is accessed and used.

Distribution
How do successful companies share data? It has to be part of the company culture and encouraged from the top down. The creation of “information silos” (repositories where data and analytics are stored, but not used) is most easily avoided when effective collaboration tools are used. The need for these tools increases exponentially with the size of the company. Smaller and medium-sized businesses generally benefit from more easily accessible communication channels. Larger companies become more compartmentalized and data tends to remain within divisions and managerial levels.

Some effective methods of disseminating information through an organization include:
*Knowledge bases and expert systems
*Help desks
*Corporate intranets and extranets
*Content management
*Wikis
*Document management

If you want to get results from your competitive intelligence efforts, the formula is simple: the right information delivered to the right people in a format they can understand. Try to hit at least 2 of those 3 criteria every time.

Check out the article. Let me know what you think.