Battling Bias The danger of Selective Insights is not limited to the government sector; it can prove costly in the business world as well. A few years ago, my firm was hired by a large software company to conduct research on a new money-management product their key competitor was rumored to be developing. The client was worried because they believed …
Selective Insights – Part 1
A Costly Example It was 2003. I was stationed in the Middle East serving as the Special Projects Officer for the Resident Office of Counterterrorism, where I ran HUMINT operations for the US military. I recall vividly how I, my colleagues, and the nation watched as top government officials, including Former Secretary of State Colin Powel, paraded satellite photos of …
Connecting Information Silos
Over the last several years there have been a number of interesting articles written about breaking down information silos, in fact, I have even used that term myself in the past. However, the more I work with clients attempting to overcome the information silo dilemma, I am convinced the emphasis should instead be on connecting information silos. Let’s face it, …
Six Degrees of Connection
Improve the ROI and sustainability of competitive intelligence in your organization by linking CI to Strategy using six analytical tools. In order to increase the ROI, and thus the sustainability, of Competitive Intelligence (CI) within your organization, it is essential to link research with strategy. While there is a growing dialogue concerning the need to increase the impact of CI …
Think Like the Competitor, Act Like the Competitor, Beat the Competitor
How many of you remember this dialogue? If you don’t know what a dial-up modem sounds like, you are probably too young to remember this movie. Scientist: General, are you prepared to destroy the enemy? General: You betcha! Scientist: Do you think they know that? General: I believe we’ve made that clear enough. Scientist: Then don’t! Tell the President to …
What’s After Next
Leveraging competitive intelligence to identify innovation white space Today many companies are surveying the market and asking themselves, “What can we make next, how can we improve our product and what would be innovative?” ‘What’s next?’ can often lead to incremental innovation, continued competition, and a lack of differentiation. Instead we should be asking, ‘What’s after next?’ Leveraging competitive intelligence, …
Threat Matrix
Several years ago, two American astronomers, Marcus Wolf and Leo Biederman, working on a mountain top in Arizona, saw something in the night sky that caused them great concern. A comet. But the comet was, well… There was a remote possibility that the comet was on a path that could bring it into direct contact with the Earth. Now we …
Threat Indicator Analysis
This is a series of six blog posts designed to provide analytical tools that will help competitive intelligence practitioners link CI to strategy. If It Is Good Enough for the CIA… While serving in Kuwait as a counter-terrorist agent for the US Government, one of my responsibilities was to detect, evaluate and report on potential terrorist threats in the region. …
DIY Competitive Intelligence
The Pros and Cons of “Do It Yourself” Competitive Intelligence I can say with confidence that 99% of companies in the world practice some form of competitive intelligence (CI). It may not be a formal, sophisticated process, but almost all companies have some way of trying to figure out what their competition is up to. Often when I am explaining …
Anatomy of CI – Part 2
Ad-hoc vs Monitoring Imagine if you tried to navigate a busy street but you could only see and hear for 5 seconds out of every minute. Would that be a safe way to travel? No, because the situation would change too fast, and with far too great of consequences to be safe. Think about how most companies conduct competitive intelligence …