![]() How to Use Competitive Intelligence to Gain an Advantage. In a world in which knowledge is power, what you don't know can hurt you. The good news: It's not so hard to find out what your rivals are up to. Some savvy (and perfectly legal) snooping—otherwise known as competitive intelligence—can drive your strategy, soothe your fears about the future, and give your company a competitive edge. In the pages that follow, we will show you how to mount an operation and wring key data points from reluctant sources. We will also explore the often murky line between what's ethical and what isn't. Mikal Lewis has an M. B. A. from Florida A& M and spent four years at Microsoft working in product planning and strategy. But the way the Seattle entrepreneur sees it, the most valuable business training he ever received was a two- week course he took at the Academy of Competitive Intelligence in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2. It was there that Ben Gilad, a former intelligence officer with the Israeli police force, taught Lewis how to use spy tactics to help him get and keep a competitive edge. Gilad's advice came in handy in early 2. Lewis launched his software company, Qworky. Marlin Hawk is a leadership advisory and executive search firm that delivers the next generation of business leaders. In the April 2, 2014 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, a reader asks me to stop dissing job boards: You claim that job boards don’t work. Yet virtually every job in. In a world in which knowledge is power, what you don't know can hurt you. The good news: It's not so hard to find out what your rivals are up to. A competitor, he feared, was poised to launch its own version of what was to be Qworky's first product, a Web application designed to improve company meetings. Like Qworky's, the rival's app was still in test mode, and the first one to market could wield a crucial advantage. Lewis began tracking his competitor's every online move: blog posts, e- mail blasts, the CEO's Twitter messages, changes to his Linked. In profile. Following Gilad's teaching, Lewis noted the dates of each dispatch on a spreadsheet and looked for patterns. Soon enough, the CEO's chatter became more frequent. The company was broadcasting more and more positive messages about its new product. It led me to believe they were entering launch mode," Lewis says. So he and his partners quickly put together a limited version of their software and released it to get the Qworky name out first. We wanted a fair shot at being heard," says Lewis. So we had to make sure we were prepared."Lewis had just engaged in an act of competitive intelligence. That's a fancy name for what essentially is a kind of supercharged market research. Competitive intelligence uses many of the same techniques as market research but deploys them to answer highly targeted and specific questions, rather than to gain insight into broad market trends. More people do competitive intelligence than you might think. And it's easy to see why. In a competitive marketplace, up- to- date information can make the difference between keeping pace, getting ahead, or being left behind. A smart intelligence operation can serve as an early- warning system for disruptive changes in the competitive landscape, whether that change is a rival's new product or pricing strategy or the entrance of an unexpected player into your market. No one can be totally stealthy, after all. All corporate maneuvers leave a trail. It is simply a matter of knowing where to look. In some cases, entrepreneurs have used intelligence- gathering tactics to learn what is really going on at their own companies, with startling results. Hedge funds and large corporations regularly contract out competitive intelligence work, often paying top dollar to the private investigators and former intelligence agents who ply the trade. But there are plenty of ways to perform competitive intelligence on a budget. Inc. spoke with some of the nation's top security consultants for advice on how an entrepreneur with limited resources can stage a successful cloak- and- dagger operation. Here's what we learned: What Do You Want to Know? This seems like an obvious question, but a sharp focus is essential to any successful intelligence- gathering effort. Don't say, 'Find out everything you can about every competitor in the marketplace,' " says John Nolan, who spent 2. It's far more productive to think of a specific question or problem that is crucial to your company's success. The goal of your intelligence operation will be to gather information to help address that one matter."I ask clients, 'What keeps you up at night?' " says William E. De. Genaro, a private investigator and founder of business intelligence firm De. Genaro & Associates in Republic, Michigan. Two common examples: "Will my competitor introduce a product that makes mine obsolete?" and "Will a supplier suddenly increase prices?" Competitive intelligence operations can also help you spot openings in the market. Careful monitoring of large companies, for example, could give you a jump on subcontracting opportunities. Some operations, such as gathering data in advance of a key strategic decision, will require you to set hard deadlines. Others, like identifying emerging competitive threats, can become ongoing and incorporated into day- to- day operations. In either case, never lose sight of your goal. You Are Only as Good as Your Sources. Every operation needs an effective network of informants. Fortunately for entrepreneurs, part of that network already is in place—the employees."The Army has a phrase, Every soldier a sensor," says Nolan. If your people are astute enough, everybody in the company can become an intelligence resource." Encourage staff members to gather competitive information as they interact with people outside the company. Salespeople, for example, talk to customers, who talk to competitors. Human resources staff members interview job candidates, who work or may have worked for rival firms. Purchasers talk to suppliers, who know who is demanding what and when it is needed. So get the whole company involved. Interview every employee about his or her knowledge or expertise, says Ken Garrison, CEO of Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals, a professional organization. Find out where employees used to work, what kind of data they use to do their job, whom they work with outside the company. It's possible they have easy access to the kind of information you are looking for or have a relationship with people who do. As they begin to ask questions and report back, keep track of what they say in a centralized place—a wiki or a database. Each independent information source can help complete a larger picture. Even a receptionist can be an intelligence asset. At one of Nolan's client companies, visiting salespeople are kept waiting for several minutes after they arrive for appointments. Should they start chatting about anything that seems germane—negotiating strategy, the possibility of a discount—the receptionist transcribes their conversation and sends it to her colleagues before the meeting starts. She's one of those many invisible people in the company," says Nolan. Of course, you will also need to expand your network beyond your office's walls. Develop a list of outsiders who are positioned to know what your competitors are up to—such as consultants, headhunters, members of the trade press, suppliers, and customers. Keep in mind that members of this group can just as easily inform on you as they can dish on your competition.) The best way to keep outsiders talking without tipping your hand about what exactly you are after is to look for opportunities to speak with them during the normal course of their business. When you interview consultants, ask them to share examples of their work. With a little guidance and skill (see "Make Them Talk"), you may be surprised at how easy it is to get people talking. Consultants, for example, often are focused more on chasing your business than on determining your hidden agenda. Indeed, people volunteer information most readily when they are talking in their self- interest. Stalk Your Prey (Virtually and Actually)It's not as romantic as speeding along the Amalfi coast in an Aston Martin, but the first thing you probably should do is jump online and take a close, nuanced look at what is available publicly. A rival company may release a lot of useful information on its website. Press releases announcing new hires, for example, can indicate what type of talent the company is hiring. Web services, such as one called Versionista, let you track all the changes anyone makes on a company's website, giving you an indication of which areas it is thinking about and where it might be headed. There are many free and subscription- based databases with information about private and public companies that can provide even more data. Marlin Hawk – leadership advisors and executive search. While digital is successfully disrupting almost every industry it comes into contact with, it is also set to revolutionize how organizations and companies themselves operate, meaning big changes are afoot for any CHRO. HR technology is becoming an area of utmost strategic importance: with over $2. Bn invested in 2. The change to the HR department that digital technology will bring will be all pervasive and omni- directional throughout every company. This paper explores these manifold changes and clusters them into three broad groups: ‘Inward’ (changes to the office of the CHRO), ‘Outward’ (changes at the employee / manager level) and ‘Across’ (changes to the organization at large). Looking Inward: digital enablement of the CHRO’s office. Over the next few years, the CHRO will become one of the more tech- savvy executives on the management committee. Already we have begun to see many CHROs recruit or develop a Head of HR Transformation or Head of HR Technology & Services to kick off this agenda, starting with the replacement of old, licensed HR platforms with modern, cloud based technologies that offer greater insight through analytics and more flexibility to scale HR services up and down. For many, this is the first step to becoming an agile, digital HR environment. In addition, we can expect more plug- and- play solutions within the CHRO’s arsenal as we witness an explosion of solutions in the market for recruitment, talent management and employee development. Work reflects play – aligning learning & engagement technology with the social realm. Employee engagement and learning technologies have taken a page out of social media’s playbook, with many organizations pursuing strategies to roll out employee communication technology that mimics social media’s quick, versatile, and multi- channel approach. The employee of the future will digest information from their employer digitally, on a mobile device (typically on the go), in either an easy to digest video/audio format or as user- friendly articles. Be it a company’s quarterly earnings, a message from the CEO, or changes being made to the company’s benefits program, such content will be consumed and shared around the organization in a manner similar to how content flows through social networks today – liked, shared, and interacted with. In addition to putting the HR department in every employee’s pocket, HR applications will need to become far more customer- centric, and follow the principles that today’s consumers demand: think mobile shopping or Google’s suite of products. Stellar UX, granular levels of personalization and immediacy of use will be paramount for an HR organization to keep employees engaged. Employees will expect an intranet to be engaging and personalized, and even self- curated - similar to their experiences with modern social media, online shopping and entertainment providers. Learning & Development will go through a similar change – already we are seeing organizations’ success stories in P2. P learning, video learning, and localized mentorship across groups of peer- level employees. This modern approach to learning & development will increase in a digital HR environment – the old model of reverting to class based learning, or stationary, solitary PC- based surveys and courses will soon be a thing of the past. A new suite of tools: multiple measurements of employee success. Another aspect of inward- facing changes will be performance and talent management. In the last three years alone, we have seen an explosion of new market entrants looking to disrupt the formerly steady ERP ecosystem. Instead of large, clunky enterprise systems, these new entrants are offering deeper insight and greater agility in decision making than ever – all of them looking to plug into a digital CHRO’s portfolio. The roster of start- ups and new services in this space alone is astounding. It ranges from real- time employee recognition, to wellness and mindfulness tools; from tools to allow employee level goal management and completion to apps for attendance management and employee location management; from video recruiting to online bias training. Moreover, with the workforce of tomorrow consisting primarily of millennials, talent development methodologies will change in tandem with this digital revolution. Gamification of career development will ensure employees stay motivated month- to- month and quarter- to- quarter. With an HR organization that is primarily cloud- based, and capable of integrating multiple third party solutions, the CHRO of the future will be more enabled, more informed, and more strategic, than ever. Looking Outward: digital technology enabling the workforce and management. Outside of the CHRO’s department, employees beyond HR will feel this digital revolution just as much as their HR counterparts. Employees will have the HR department in their pocket, and be able to execute their responsibilities more efficiently than ever. They will be more informed (through personalized intranets and channels of information), more engaged (through crowd- curated content and more natural communication technologies) and more career focused (maintaining a line of sight into their career and development from month to month/ quarter to quarter) than ever, with digital technology as the enabler. Multi- use of mobile devices becoming the norm. Employees will become more de- tethered from the office, and will have a suite of products that allows them to operate from anywhere and work on anything. One of the biggest issues on the CIO’s agenda for 2. The CHRO and CIO should be leading this agenda in lockstep, to ensure that no function or group of employees are left out. Whereas a few years ago digital enablement really meant ‘enabling the salesforce’ with mobile devices, this transformation will be about ensuring employees feel as connected to the company as possible, whenever and wherever they work. Central to this is a design- focused approach to processes, applications, user experience and flexible labor. Analytics and customization – enabling employee and management. With cloud technology solutions increasing across the marketplace (aside from the CHRO’s office), more employee data is obtainable than ever. With this data comes the potential for customization and increased agility. Employees will be able to give real time feedback to management on new applications and business processes, providing the HR department instant insight into culture- effecting gripes and department- wide bugbears with technology. Furthermore, with a multitude of connected digital devices, managers (and the CHRO) will be equipped with masses of data that can be leveraged to optimize training and personal development, improve business process, increase performance and reward staff in a more meaningful fashion. With all this data flooding into the CHRO’s department, there is likely to be a rapid increase in the demand for stand- along HR Analytics departments. Looking Across: digital will unlock the millennial generation’s talent. Aside from the factors discussed in ‘Looking Inward’ and ‘Looking Outward’ occurring en masse throughout an organization, a digital environment will foster collaboration, creativity and new strategy generation like never before. We are already starting to see real- time opinions being shared by employees – some organizations have already begun trialing a red- amber- green system for individual employees to log their satisfaction (both generally and relating to specific issues), giving insight into leader’s management style, agreement with a business strategy or direction, and potentially giving employees an anonymous channel to speak up when they see improper practices. The next step is to democratize leadership and decision making, giving employees a direct channel to the management committee to voice their concerns, share their ideas and potentially add to (or change) a company’s strategy – many expect this form of bottom- up strategy creation to become the norm in the workplace of tomorrow. Furthermore, better digital technology for collaboration will allow business silos to break down, and cross- functional partnerships to become commonplace – teams from around the world will be able to socialize, comment, and improve one another’s work in real time.
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