All Discussions Tagged 'CI' - Competitive Intelligence2024-03-29T07:22:59Zhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=CI&feed=yes&xn_auth=noCI and corruption + CI business modeltag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2012-02-17:2036441:Topic:721812012-02-17T12:56:01.456ZC. Gabriel Elefteriuhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/CGabrielElefteriu
<p>1. Is a corrupt environment good or bad for CI business? (i.e. do you see more opportunities for CI work/more need of CI in countries with higher levels of corruption compared to cleaner ones?)</p>
<p></p>
<p>2. How does operating in a more corrupt environment impact the practice of CI? Are there any differences? Should there be a different approach to CI under such circumstances?</p>
<p></p>
<p>3. Just out of curiosity: can anyone reference any CI <em>business models</em> out there? We've…</p>
<p>1. Is a corrupt environment good or bad for CI business? (i.e. do you see more opportunities for CI work/more need of CI in countries with higher levels of corruption compared to cleaner ones?)</p>
<p></p>
<p>2. How does operating in a more corrupt environment impact the practice of CI? Are there any differences? Should there be a different approach to CI under such circumstances?</p>
<p></p>
<p>3. Just out of curiosity: can anyone reference any CI <em>business models</em> out there? We've got plenty of CI theoretical models, and CI practice models - but it seems CI's not doing that great on the business model side. (Obviously, this is not about CI freelancers or corporate in-house CI units, but private CI firms/agencies)</p>
<p></p>
<p>Thanks.</p> Competitive Intelligence 2020: The Discussion that Started in Orlandotag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2011-05-14:2036441:Topic:502862011-05-14T21:12:16.690ZCraig S. Fleisherhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/CraigSFleisher
<p>I facilitated a short session with over 100 of my closest acquaintances (and quite a few good friends as well ;) about what were the driving trends which would help shape the field and practice of competitive intelligence about ten years hence. I organized this discussion around our various tables in nine categories (all of which I had suggested should be globally-focused), as follows;</p>
<p>1. Demand for CI Products and Services</p>
<p>2. Supply of CI Resources (human, informational,…</p>
<p>I facilitated a short session with over 100 of my closest acquaintances (and quite a few good friends as well ;) about what were the driving trends which would help shape the field and practice of competitive intelligence about ten years hence. I organized this discussion around our various tables in nine categories (all of which I had suggested should be globally-focused), as follows;</p>
<p>1. Demand for CI Products and Services</p>
<p>2. Supply of CI Resources (human, informational, technological, etc.)</p>
<p>3. Place of CI in the Organizational Hierarchy</p>
<p>4. Primary (PR) and Secondary Research (SR)</p>
<p>5. Analysis</p>
<p>6. Communication, Dissemination and Reporting of CI</p>
<p>7. Vendor Community</p>
<p>8. Association Community</p>
<p>9. Academic Community</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I had suggested to the attendees of this session that the discussion would continue on this site; as such, I am offering this discussion forum up for allowing not only the attendees to contribute but also for the broader CI Ning community to chime in as well.</p>
<p>So, what are the key drivers which will shape the future of CI? Please feel free to add your drivers to the category (or categories) of your choice and keep this discussion moving ahead.</p> 2011 ICI / Atelis CI Conference in Bad Nauheim, Germany - a summary report.tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2011-04-18:2036441:Topic:492312011-04-18T08:56:16.664ZArthur Weisshttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/ArthurWeiss
<p>This was a fantastic conference - and very valuable with tons of learning over the two days. There were some very useful and interesting discussions and the conference was a mix of expert panels, academic presentations and practitioner case examples, etc. Perhaps the ideal mix. </p>
<br />
<p>One high-point was the second day keynote from Arik Johnson which can be seen at …</p>
<p>This was a fantastic conference - and very valuable with tons of learning over the two days. There were some very useful and interesting discussions and the conference was a mix of expert panels, academic presentations and practitioner case examples, etc. Perhaps the ideal mix. </p>
<br />
<p>One high-point was the second day keynote from Arik Johnson which can be seen at <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/arikjohnson/intelligence-solutions-design-atelisici-keynote-20110407-7543080">http://www.slideshare.net/arikjohnson/intelligence-solutions-design-atelisici-keynote-20110407-7543080</a> although the slides don't do justice to Arik's talk. </p>
<p>The low-point was the first day keynote on the important topic of IP in CI, - where unfortunately the key note speaker couldn't make it, but was ably replaced by Prof Dr Martin Grothe on collaborative tools for CI.</p>
<p>Fortunately, IP was covered later by Carsten Deus who looked at patents. This was a very interesting and useful talk. I know a fair bit about what can be learned from patents (having spent a year working with Derwent years ago) but Dr Deus showed me much more - for example, using patents to predict the likelihood of key R&D staff moving jobs following a merger or acquisition. </p>
<p>I had a conflict of interest in whether to go to what looked like a fascinating talk by Steven Turbes on measuring performance in CI or go back to my roots in financial analysis and learn about the emerging XBRL standard. XBRL won out - and should prove very useful for analysis. (I was thinking of a project I had a few years ago, that involved analysis of dozens of financial reports - it took days. With XBRL I could have done it in hours at the most). </p>
<p>Another session that wowed people (and was mentioned by other speakers over the two days was Dr Klaus Heinzelbecker's talk on "Unknown unknowns: the ultimate challenge for business intelligence". This looked at ways of approaching and understanding this problem and also what can't be understood. </p>
<p>I was on a panel session, facilitated by Martin Ainsworth, looking at story-telling as a CI technique. This led to some interesting ideas on how story-telling can be used - and I've written my own ideas on this (some of which came out of the session) at <a href="http://awareci.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/telling-stories-fairy-tales-case-studies-scenarios/">http://awareci.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/telling-stories-fairy-tales-case-studies-scenarios/</a></p>
<p>The final session of day 1 was another choice: Reverse Costing as a way for constructing competitor accounts, or a session on war games for strategy investigations. Reverse Costing is a difficult discipline but the session looked at how it could be done, and how the results can really highlight where competitors are doing things differently. (One example that comes to mind was a case where the client felt that there was no room for cost efficiency so could not understand how the competitor was doing things that seemed to be more profitable. It turned out that the competitor was recycling a key raw material so their wastage was much lower and material usage much more efficient. This meant that the overall process used by the competitor was much more effective and profitable. One seemingly small change made a massive difference). </p>
<p>Day 2 sessions looked at CI in China, sensory marketing intelligence (a very interesting talk by Luis Madureira looking at how companies use sensual information in their strategies - comparing The Gap with Abercrombie and Fitch and showing how the two differed), a session on tender analysis and what this can tell you about competitor strategies, and a key session on the need for a CI journal.</p>
<p>The CI Journal session was poorly attended, considering its importance. For a subject to be viewed as academically credible there needs to be a peer-reviewed journal covering the topic that is in recognised academic lists such as the ISI Web of Knowledge. Although CI topics are published in a number of journals - looking at marketing, information science and more, there is currently no dedicated CI journal. The now defunct <em>Journal of Competitive Intelligence & Management</em> was just getting to the point that it could have been considered for the ISI Web of Knowledge before it was killed off. This means it will take at least 5 years for a new journal to build up that reputation. Meanwhile CI loses credibility as a serious discipline worth studying without a dedicated journal. Fortunately this looks as though it will be remedied - with agreement to start a new dedicated academic, peer-reviewed, journal. </p>
<p>The second day concluded with two more sessions. Andreas Vesper looked at trade-show intelligence (as my choice of three sessions - the full programme can still be seen at <a href="http://conference.competitive-intelligence.com/">http://conference.competitive-intelligence.com/</a>) followed by Dominika Dabrowska showing why social media is now so important for CI and should not be viewed in most cases as secondary research but primary research. </p>
<br />
<h2><font size="2"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Apart from the sessions, the networking included a dinner (with an Elvis impersonator) and a tour of Bad Nauheim which is a beautiful Bavarian chocolate-box type town. <br/><br/>Well done to all involved in organising one of the best CI conferences I've attended. <br/>I've uploaded some photos on the conference.</span></font></h2>
<h2><font size="2"><span style="font-weight: normal;">T<font face="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><span>hese are of the conference:<br/> <font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://bit.ly/eUTzLi">http://bit.ly/eUTzLi</a><br/></u></font> These are of Bad Nauheim:<br/> <font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://bit.ly/eweDsf">http://bit.ly/eweDsf</a></u></font></span></font> <br/><br/><em>This is my personal summary of the ICI / Atelis Conference - and based on my memory and the sessions I attended. Perhaps other attendees could comment on their thoughts and the sessions they found valuable. </em></span></font></h2>
<p>Arthur Weiss</p>
<p><font size="2"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><em><font face="Arial"><font color="#0000FF"><font size="4"><span><b><i>AWARE<br/></i></b></span></font></font> <b><i><font size="1"><span>Marketing Intelligence for Business Growth<br/></span></font></i></b> <font size="1"><span>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br/> <font color="#7F7F7F">Web:</font> <font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk">http://www.marketing-intelligence.co.uk</a></u></font> <font color="#7F7F7F"><br/> Blog:</font> <font color="#0000FF"><u><a href="http://www.find-it-out.co.uk">http://www.find-it-out.co.uk</a><br/></u></font> <font color="#7F7F7F">Twitter: ArthurWeiss<br/>International Tel: +44 20 8954 9121 Fax: +44 20 8954 2102</font></span></font></font> <br/></em></span></font></p> CI in sportstag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2011-04-16:2036441:Topic:490462011-04-16T09:30:46.318ZC. Gabriel Elefteriuhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/CGabrielElefteriu
<p>Hello everyone,</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I was wondering if there's anyone here with expertise in applying CI in sports. TJ Waters gives an interesting example in his book "Hyperformance", looking at CI operations for an American football team, and it does seem a very appropriate field for CI practice. However, from my knowledge there's comparatively little detailed literature/info and indeed interest (apparently) for CI in sports, out there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, if you have any thoughts on this, I'd…</p>
<p>Hello everyone,</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I was wondering if there's anyone here with expertise in applying CI in sports. TJ Waters gives an interesting example in his book "Hyperformance", looking at CI operations for an American football team, and it does seem a very appropriate field for CI practice. However, from my knowledge there's comparatively little detailed literature/info and indeed interest (apparently) for CI in sports, out there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>So, if you have any thoughts on this, I'd very much like to 'hear' them!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And if this subject's been raised before on this forum, please excuse me and please point me to the past discussions (haven't found any myself). I'm a new member and I've obviously missed A LOT until now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thank you very much!</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Gabriel</p> Experiencing Different Cultures Enhances Intelligence Professionals work?tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2010-07-06:2036441:Topic:347272010-07-06T09:40:04.698ZMiguel Duarte Ferreirahttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/MiguelDuarteFerreira71
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0cm;text-indent:0cm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">I’ve just read this article - Experiencing Different Cultures Enhances Creativity (</span><a href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/193494.php"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/193494.php…</span></a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0cm;text-indent:0cm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">I’ve just read this article - Experiencing Different Cultures Enhances Creativity (</span><a href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/193494.php"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/193494.php</span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">) – that got me thinking how much a</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0cm;text-indent:0cm"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">similar view would impact our work as professional on the intelligence field.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0cm;text-indent:0cm"><br/></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0cm;text-indent:0cm"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">In today’s environment where we are likely faced with multiple variables coming from different parts of the world, how much do we benefit to expose to as many cultures as possible? And if so how can we do it?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0cm;text-indent:0cm"><br/></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0cm;text-indent:0cm"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US" xml:lang="EN-US">What are your views and thoughts on this subject?</span></p> Why Experts keep failing ustag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2010-06-28:2036441:Topic:344772010-06-28T06:44:36.440ZBabette Bensoussanhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/BabetteBensoussan
I recently read this article in the Wall Street Journal on a just released book written by David Freedman called "Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us—And How<br />
to Know When Not to Trust Them". It reminded me of some of the issues we have in CI. Has anyone read the book? Do we as CI professionals try to make out we are experts when we deliver our reports and/or briefings?<br></br><br></br>Here is the link to the article:…<br></br>
I recently read this article in the Wall Street Journal on a just released book written by David Freedman called "Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us—And How<br />
to Know When Not to Trust Them". It reminded me of some of the issues we have in CI. Has anyone read the book? Do we as CI professionals try to make out we are experts when we deliver our reports and/or briefings?<br/><br/>Here is the link to the article:<br/><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575309610811148630.html">http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704009804575309610811148630.html</a><br/><br/>Most interested to hear people's thoughts on this matter.<br/> Trusted Sourcestag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2010-05-14:2036441:Topic:328792010-05-14T21:33:31.290ZPeggy Lucerohttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/PeggyLucero
I have spent a good portion of my career working at law firms doing research that won new clients and lawsuits. The nature of this research was quite wide in scope--'all over the map' on legal, technical and business matters.<br></br> During those years my favorite, trusted sources were the leading fee based vendors, Westlaw, Lexis/Nexis, DIALOG, D & Bradstreet, Hoover's, etc. because they brought value add to their products and had user interfaces that enabled a focused, effective search to…
I have spent a good portion of my career working at law firms doing research that won new clients and lawsuits. The nature of this research was quite wide in scope--'all over the map' on legal, technical and business matters.<br/> During those years my favorite, trusted sources were the leading fee based vendors, Westlaw, Lexis/Nexis, DIALOG, D & Bradstreet, Hoover's, etc. because they brought value add to their products and had user interfaces that enabled a focused, effective search to be run.<br/>I have also done a good deal of primary research which has also been fruitful and sometimes amazing.<br/><br/>Of course, today with the Internet, there are SO many more avenues to go down....<br/>Speaking solely about Competitive Intelligence, can someone share with me their favorite resources for B to B CI research -- those requiring a subscription or not.<br/><br/><br/><br/> External BI and its place in CItag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2009-11-03:2036441:Topic:280792009-11-03T09:30:53.761ZRobert J Steelehttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/RobertJSteele
I always held the belief that to understand the competitive landscape I needed to understand a number of different things. A bit like a jigsaw puzzle, I needed to piece things together to get the overall picture.<br />
<br />
When I worked for a large consulting firm in the UK, I used to receive weekly or monthly reports on competitors, market, general news etc. These reports were pulled together from a number of sources by either my admin support, or central marketing or some other such function. I used…
I always held the belief that to understand the competitive landscape I needed to understand a number of different things. A bit like a jigsaw puzzle, I needed to piece things together to get the overall picture.<br />
<br />
When I worked for a large consulting firm in the UK, I used to receive weekly or monthly reports on competitors, market, general news etc. These reports were pulled together from a number of sources by either my admin support, or central marketing or some other such function. I used to read through these reports and find 90-95% irrelevant or generic, a bit of a fill but nothing to act on as such. The other 5-10% was useful in so much as it taught me something I may not have already known, but it didn't specifically present an opportunity, risk or threat.<br />
<br />
As a person responsible for business development, what I really wanted was to know key things that I recognized as important, relevant and a call to action. These things I called trigger events.<br />
<br />
The problem was, I couldn't identify trigger events quickly enough and without wading through reams and reams of published media or struggling to phrase a question to a search engine relevant to the result I actually needed. I mean, asking a search engine a complex question is not an option, and even if it was, you still get 100,000's of results!! No. What I needed was an automated system that read all the relevant, global, industry papers, news, trade press and web sites and told me when a trigger event occurred.<br />
<br />
Then along came Google Alerts and Google News. However, both of these solutions have an underlying issue, in that they still use the Google Page Rank process, which means you get to see what is popular based on your keyword (boolean) search, but not necessarily what is most relevant. Google unfortunately suffers from what I call the P5 syndrome, in that nobody (and I mean nobody) looks beyond page five (P5) of a Google result! But there are 100,000's of other pages parsed and indexed, so they must contain the keywords and in context, right? Yes, you are right, but we don't look because we assume Page Rank filters the wheat from the chaff, but it doesn't. It just sorts out the most popular from the leas popular and assumes that the most popular must be the most relevant!<br />
<br />
The problem is, a lot of content posted on the Internet by people is not very well indexed, does not comply to best practice and cannot be easily 'seen' (parsed and indexed) by search engines. As such very few people find it, and as such very few people popularize it, and as such it sits on P6++ of the search return and you don't get to see it!<br />
<br />
Because Google Alerts and Google News use the same underlying technology (Page Rank) the articles posted are not always the most relevant, are often duplicated, and are often well out of date. This is because Google time stamps the content based on when it is parsed and indexed, not on when it was posted originally. I have found instances where a Google Alert has produced a result timestamped on the day of arrival, only for me to discover that the article was actually two years old! This is because the Google Bot had never seen the site until recently. Maybe the site owner had gone through a SEO (search engine optimization) exercise recently, and now could be clearly seen.<br />
<br />
The point is, Google Alerts and Google News didn't solve my issue, because I didn't want millions of hits, I didn't want legacy data, what I wanted was information that was relevant to me, delivered to me, as it happens and as close to real time as possible. Which is why we built <a href="http://www.MyFeedMe.com">www.MyFeedMe.com</a><br />
<br />
Now, my question to you is; what value do you attribute to external business information as a component of an overall CI strategy?<br />
<br />
For me, being able to add a competitor name/product/market to MyFeedMe and to continuously track and monitor trigger events relevant to that competitor in near enough real time, and to have that information sent directly to me as it happens (not to a central team who will print it, sit on it and eventually send it), is very valuable. But how does it sit within the framework of CI as understood by this group?<br />
<br />
What I am trying to achieve here is twofold, firstly I would like to open up MyFeedMe to my peers for review and secondly, i would like to understand more about how and where MyFeedMe fits, either in the CI or BI space if the group have that knowledge.<br />
<br />
Let me have your thoughts. By the way, we sell MyFeedMe at around $50 per user per month, just so that you know the price/value argument. "We don't look at our competitors."tag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2009-10-22:2036441:Topic:276102009-10-22T23:27:11.117ZJeremy Benjacob-Fullerhttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/JeremyBenjacobFuller
One of my colleagues was on an introduction call recently with a potential new client (a major health insurer), and the responses from them were surprising - shockingly so. Their message was this, "We don't look at our competitors. We look at market trends, and react to those."<br />
<br />
My first thought was that we were speaking to the wrong group, but they self identified as the CI function, included a person titled "Director of CI and Market Research", and claimed to be responsible for all research…
One of my colleagues was on an introduction call recently with a potential new client (a major health insurer), and the responses from them were surprising - shockingly so. Their message was this, "We don't look at our competitors. We look at market trends, and react to those."<br />
<br />
My first thought was that we were speaking to the wrong group, but they self identified as the CI function, included a person titled "Director of CI and Market Research", and claimed to be responsible for all research related requests... but that no one at the company ever asked them to look at Competitors.<br />
<br />
Now granted, I work in a CI consulting role, so my perspective is skewed by the fact that people who come to me interested in looking at their competitors, but am I missing something here?<br />
<br />
Why would a company NOT be interested in having a better understanding of their competition?<br />
For those of you working in an internal CI function, do you see this lack of interest in competitors from your senior leadership also? Online TV Intelligence Economiquetag:competitiveintelligence.ning.com,2009-05-29:2036441:Topic:227932009-05-29T00:31:04.276ZMiguel Duarte Ferreirahttps://competitiveintelligence.ning.com/profile/MiguelDuarteFerreira71
For all of you who are interested in other perspectives.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://tv.aege.fr/">http://tv.aege.fr/</a><br />
<br />
It is in French but you can always use Google to translate the pages, unfortunately not the Videos/Programs.
For all of you who are interested in other perspectives.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://tv.aege.fr/">http://tv.aege.fr/</a><br />
<br />
It is in French but you can always use Google to translate the pages, unfortunately not the Videos/Programs.