Competitive Intelligence: Facing the Your Rivals with Confidence
This paper discusses four writings that examine concept of competitive intelligence and how it applies to today’s business world. The first and second discusses how the world is changing to be more global and how competitive intelligence applies to that transition. The second writing deals with lessons that have been learned from successful competitive intelligence implementation. The final piece addresses how companies can improve the confidence with which they make decisions based on their work in competitive intelligence. Finally, all of these readings are with personal experience to determine the relevance of these theories to each other.
Introduction: The Role of Competitive Intelligence in a Changing World
It is truly undeniable that we live in a world that experiencing, no matter the actual location, a switch from a domestic economy to a global economy. As this change occurs, it is important for all companies to give consideration to how they remain competitive in not only their local economy, but in the worldwide marketplace. The only viable way to remain a viable competitor in the present day is to engage in the process of competitive intelligence. On a local level, this means finding the most effective ways to find out what your competition is doing. It involves planning your new business acquisition techniques around the types of tactics and product/service positioning that is being used by rivals.
Three different sources will be examined to best deal with the topic of “competitive intelligence” and how it impacts us, how it can be used, and how it can be attained. The first is a chapter from Competitive Intelligence and Global Business, which addresses the ramifications of business as it relates to the trend of globalization. A second chapter from the same author, titled, “Moving from a Domestic to a Global Competitive intelligence Perspective: Learning from World-Class Benchmark Firms” will also be examined. The third, is a chapter from Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence, will take a look at what can be learned specifically from real competitive intelligence situations and what can be learned from them. The final reading to be examined will be The New Competitive Intelligence: Raising the Confidence Quotient and deals with how strategies in competitive intelligence can make a real impact in how decisions are made and how competitive intelligence can make a difference in the level of confidence with which business decisions are made.
Competing Globally with Sound Competitive Intelligence
In Competitive Intelligence and Global Business, the challenge of globalization and competitive intelligence plays an integral role in the adjustment that must be made in businesses worldwide in order to transition to the worldwide marketplace. Challenges abound, and to not embrace this trend and address it directly, is an unsound way (to say the least), to handle the changes that a business that wishes to engage in the emerging and increasingly prevalant global marketplace. (Fleshier, 2005, pp. 45-46)
Five primary reasons that global competitive intelligence is important are addressed in this chapter of Fleshier’s book. The first, “Sensitivity,” addresses the fact that when dealing with the global marketplace, a business must be aware and cater to the various norms that might be faced in other cultures, such as economics, and various policy or law issues that may pose problems in various other questions. The second, “Frustration,” addresses the fact that many businesses will be immobilized by the sheer magnitude of the task of gathering the competitive intelligence. “Preparedness” deals with the level of readiness that businesses have to deal with the challenges that intelligence on a global scale presents. The fourth, “Unfamiliarity,” states that businesses have a hesitancy to deal with international business, particularly when they have lack of familiarity that exists in these situations. The final reason challenge that competitive intelligence presents in the global marketplace is “Resource Investment,” and this addresses the hesitation that companies have to put funds into securing the intelligence that they need to be competitive in that situation. Addressing these various hesitancies that businesses might face when dealing with globalization can make the difference between success and failure internationally. (Fleshier, 2005, p. 5)
Competing Globally Through Implementation of Competitive Intelligence
The next reading from Competitive Intelligence and the Global Marketplace, “Moving from a Domestic to a Global Competitive Intelligence Perspective,” outlines a progression that helps define an effective way of extending from a domestic competitive intelligence plan to one that is more effective on a global scale.
Focus -> Implement -> Institutionalize -> Change -> Hone (Fleshier, 2005, p. 53)
The model outlined above starts with the actual realization of a company that they must make a change, and progresses through the steps that it takes until they reach the point where they are fully adjusted to the global marketplace and only making minimal changes to their intelligence gathering to maintain the competitive edge. Ultimately, it takes a actual plan of attack along with a plan for integration in order to make the transition that is necessary to compete on the global scale. (Fleshier, 2005, pp. 44-47)
Lessons of Putting Competitive Intelligence to Work in your Organization
Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence deals with the role that competitive intelligence and how it can be attained and put to use effectively. Prescott outlines 4 different “lessons” that define how competitive information can be put to use inside an organization. The first lesson states that competitive information must be acknowledged as what it is: an important part of an organization that allows it to remain sustainable in our increasingly competitive marketplace. A plan must be put into place to directly impact the need for competitive information. The second lesson states that a CI program must be put into place and must be credible, providing credible information. The information brought in must be attained ethically and must provide information that is correct or else the program will be bound for failure. The third lesson states that essentially intelligence must be fostered through the use of the individual and needs to be facilitated through an organizational philosophy that values knowledge. What this means is that the gathering of intelligence is dependent upon everyone in an organization, not just one person dedicated to this purpose. The fourth and final lesson is the idea that competitive information is driven by the actual needs of the entity that is gathering it. This simply covers the idea that the need for the information is driven by the constantly changing marketplace (John Prescott, 2001, pp. 3-17).
The concept of competitive information must be implemented, and it’s not necessarily intuitive to put it to work and make a concerted effort to generate it. Initiatives must be put into place to target what information is needed and get that information in place, in order to make competitive information.
Using Competitive Information to Bolster Confidence
The final reading on competitive intelligence, “The New Competitive Intelligence: Raising the Confidence Quotient,” deals with both business intelligence and competitive intelligence and the confidence that both can provide. Britt states, “Competitive intelligence is all about making more confident, less risky decisions. It’s all about determining market trends, customer needs and how you are set up to meet those needs.” (Britt, 2006, p. 10)
This article compares and contrasts business intelligence (quantitative) and competitive (qualitative) intelligence. The difference between the two of them is that business intelligence deals with knowledge that actually resides within the company itself. While business intelligence is important, competitive intelligence is distinguished by its increasing importance in how things are done in today’s world. (Britt, 2006, pp. 10-11)
Conclusion: Competitive Intelligence in the Real World
My personal experience in competitive intelligence was in working for a Japanese company in a very competitive and technological field. I worked in the sales arena and found that it was always useful to gather any information that might be available on what competitors that I dealt with everyday were doing. This information was gathered in a number of ways. We were provided some tools from the corporation, such as a website that would allow us to access specifications on our competitor’s equipment, which was useful, but only in very niche situations where specifications were all that mattered to the customer. The most valuable information was attained from talking to customers, who would provide us with word of the tactics being used to gain the business, or in some situations promotional printouts or rival proposals. When this personally gained information was able to be secured, this was what proved to be most useful. From this knowledge, we were able to retool our approaches to counteract these competitive tactics so that they could be addressed and nullified before they ever surfaced as a problem. The use of this competitive intelligence was one of my most useful tools in securing business and allowed a lot of success in my experiences.
Overall, competitive information can make all the difference in gaining the business of potential clientele, on both a domestic basis and in the rapidly expanding global business market. By taking steps to secure and strategically use information about what competitors are doing, businesses who adopt these philosophies early on gain an early advantage in the business world.
Works Cited
Britt, P. (2006, Nov/Dec ). The New Competitive Intelligence: Raising the Confidence Quotient. KM World , pp. 10-11, 24.
Fleshier, D. L. (2005). Competitive Intelligence and Global Business. Conneticut: Praeger Publishers.
John Prescott, S. M. (2001). Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.