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| Of the hundreds of managers I've worked with in my career, Tom has to rank in the top 1%. He has everything you could want in a manager, a consultant, or a person. |
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Competitive Intelligence Customers Survey Results |
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In April of 2010, I conducted
a survey of competitive
intelligence professionals from
thirty five organizations
about competitive intelligence. The goal of
the survey was to understand
how competitive intelligence
practitioners view their
customers (and vice versa). The survey can be
downloaded
here. |
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The survey consisted of five
questions. (The results are
presented following the
questions.)
-
What functions in a company
do you most often serve with
competitive intelligence
information?
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How would you describe
your confidence in
providing regularly
actionable and valuable
competitive intelligence to
your customers?
-
How would you describe
your customer’s confidence
that you deliver valuable
and actionable competitive
intelligence information?
-
How do your customers
commonly recognize the value
of competitive intelligence?
-
How do your customers
usually indicate that they
are satisfied (or not) with
your competitive
intelligence deliverables?
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Notes:
The answers illustrate how
competitive intelligence often
serves the outward viewing
functions of an organization.
Note that the "Management"
responses are surprising unless
the respondents lumped the
functional management in the
individual categories (e.g.,
strategic marketing management
in the strategic marketing
response).
Another survey is needed to
drill down into the specific
ways that CI serves each
function. |
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Notes:
The second and third questions
deal with the confidence that
the competitive intelligence
function delivered
valuable and actionable
competitive intelligence.
One question deals with the
practitioner's self confidence
while the second deals with the
perceived confidence of the
customer.
Overall, note the high
confidence reported in both
dimensions. This could mean that
the respondents are
exceptionally good at CI and
that their customers share that
opinion. Or, this might be an
atypical sample.
A survey of customers would add
color to this set of responses. |
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Notes:
This graph continue the analysis
of questions 2 and 3. Here, the
"customer confidence" score is
subtracted from the "self
confidence" score. Overall, most
of the time there appears to be
equal confidence. Except for one
outlier, the scores are
symmetrical.
These results indicate
consistent alignment between CI
and their customers, at least
among the thirty five
respondents. |
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Notes:
The most common benefit cited
was improved understanding of
the competitive environment.
Some of the other possible
responses were more tangible.
For instance, helping with
specific wins is a measurable
outcome.
Another fascinating (though not
unexpected) finding is that many
use CI to confirm their
intuition. Rather than expecting
that CI will provide an answer,
apparently many are using it to
justify an answer that is
already known. Using CI to avoid
mistakes is another "guardrail"
function for CI. |
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Notes:
The most common feedback
mechanisms appear to be informal
or indirect. This is a danger
for CI though perhaps it is
difficult to avoid particularly
in shops where CI's uses results
in less tangible outcomes (see
question 4).
It is hard to reconcile this
answer set with the answers
given to questions 2 and 3
unless the feedback (informal or
not) is so effective as to
justify high confidence for both
CI and customers.
Lastly, for the six percent that
do not get feedback, it seems to
be a problematic assignment. A
lack of communication from
customers is often a death knell
for CI. |
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