The new Intelligence Cycle is a Spider Web!

[Arie Barendregt]

The new intelligence cycle is a spider web! It has 8 elements instead of 4, and it can finally be used to measure and compare the quality of a firm's competitor study activity. I have used it to compare these activities in 7 small firms, but it can be used to measure and compare the CI levels of all firms all over the world. Read all about it in http://www.amazon.co.uk/Small-Enterprises-Competitors-Business---Bu...

[Andrew Beurschgens]

Thank you for this Arie.  It sounds similar to a study that Monika Giese pioneered in Switzerland and that we aim to replicate in the UK if we can.  I am unsure of the key take aways from Switzerland but would be keen to understand if there is anything that we could incorporate from your line of research to ensure that we might be able to bridge the gap between the 2 works.

[Arie Barendregt]

Andrew, unfortunately I am not familiar with the study of Monika Giese. Therefore it is impossible to assess if my work bridges the gap between this Swiss study and the intended study in the UK. The key take aways from my study are a) that there are 3 company categories; companies that are ahead of other suppliers, focusing on technology development, b) companies that are active in niches, only looking for new customers, and c) companies that are behind other suppliers, and desperately need competitor information. The recommendations include 3 sets with 24 marketing/competitor study/organisational level recommendations for every single one of these 3 categories. Finally, the study unexpectedly shows that the quality of a firm's competitor study activity is only one element in its eventual success, meaning that even firms that are doing well in this respect still need to have a relative competitive market position where they can actually benefit from their intelligence findings.

[Andrew Beurschgens]

Just hope that it is not a spider web....so long as there is clear line of site in terms of the question being asked and what we will then do with the implications from the answers/perceptions of where are we and what's next...if the collection plan turns out into spider's web, all very well and good.....otherwise we might fail to get more of these size of businesses involved and steering steady paths and courses to their successful futures....

[Arie Barendregt]

Andrew, the study presents 25 pages per SE (and there are 7 SEs) with the following findings: company/market/competitor description, environmental scanning and marketing activities, management's perception of the importance of competition, internal and external reasons for competitor study, competitor study activity/frequency/duration, competitor study subjects, place in the organisation, owner-manager role/education/experience/knowledge, research questions, data sources, ethical/legal/unethical/illegal data collection, data storage and data access, data analysis, intelligence dissemination, resource constraints, assessment usefulness competitor information in decision-making, measurement of results, and yes, finally there is an overall spider web, but a most unusual one indeed. Please send your private email address to [e-mail] and I can send you a few examples of this spiderweb model from my study. However, I do not want these models to be taken out of the study since it is indeed the entire case story per SE that gives us all the interesting data. I am confident that with the above info in the book you will most certainly find more candidate firms, particularly so since I presented my findings to every single SE in the book and they immediately selected a short list of priority activities.