© 2019 All Rights Reserved
© 2019 All Rights Reserved
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About Cookies OKWhat is Competitive Intelligence
This is an extract from a lecture we gave to MBAs, business school students & graduates at the University of Westminster in London. Watch for a taste or click here for the full lecture.
Contact us if you would also like us to talk to your employees or students on any aspect of competitive or marketing intelligence.
Businesses (and people) over time develop habits and patterns of working. Sometimes these lead to success. However often they stop management from seeing reality – especially when the business environment changes. Competitive intelligence can identify these business blindspots – both in the company itself, and in its competitors. Taking advantage of competitor blindspots is a major way that a company can beat its competitors, so it is crucial to understand one’s own blindspots so as to protect oneself from possible attack.
Business problems can be shown through humour. Humour allows businesses to take a step back and see a problem applied to a situation that appears different to their own. One can also sometimes see similar behaviour in one’s own organisation – thus highlighting a possible blindspot. Humour is just one technique for showing blindspots. Others include the use of drama workshops and story-telling, or war-gaming where the business environment is modelled and management try and take an external look at themselves and their competitive situation.
The following “stories” and office “theories” are taken from our humour database – with a random selection shown. Refresh the page for further examples.
A story is told about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.
Once, Conan-Doyle was visiting Paris and climbed into a taxi cab. Before he could utter a word, the driver turned to him and asked, Where can I take you, Sir Arthur?
Conan-Doyle was flabbergasted. He asked the driver if he had ever seen him before.
No, sir the driver responded I have never seen you before.
Then he explained: This morning's paper had a story about you being on vacation in Marseilles. This is the taxi stand where people who return from Marseilles always come to. Your skin color tells me you have been on vacation. The ink-spot on your right index finger suggests to me that you are a writer. Your clothing is very English, and not French. Adding up all those pieces of information, I deduced that you are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
This is truly amazing! the writer exclaimed. You are a real-life counter-part to my fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes!
There is one other thing the driver said.
What is that? asked Conan-Doyle, to which the driver answered:
Your name is on the front of your suitcase.
Sometimes one doesn't need to depend too much on analysis. The answer is available just by looking. Many analysts try and show how clever they are by making something simple look complicated - or worse, actually spend company time searching through various sources when the answer is right in front of them.
Businesses (and people) over time develop habits and patterns of working. Sometimes these lead to success. However often they stop management from seeing reality – especially when the business environment changes. Competitive intelligence can identify these business blindspots – both in the company itself, and in its competitors. Taking advantage of competitor blindspots is a major way that a company can beat its competitors, so it is crucial to understand one’s own blindspots so as to protect oneself from possible attack.
Business problems can be shown through humour. Humour allows businesses to take a step back and see a problem applied to a situation that appears different to their own. One can also sometimes see similar behaviour in one’s own organisation – thus highlighting a possible blindspot. Humour is just one technique for showing blindspots. Others include the use of drama workshops and story-telling, or war-gaming where the business environment is modelled and management try and take an external look at themselves and their competitive situation.
The following “stories” and office “theories” are taken from our humour database – with a random selection shown. Refresh the page for further examples.
Senior management can get away with clean desks. For anybody else it looks as if you are not working hard enough.
Build huge piles of documents around your workspace. To the casual observer, last year's work looks the same as today's work. It's the volume that counts. So pile the papers high and spread them wide. Even better, put lots of books on the floor to make it look like you are working on something major. Thick computer manuals are one possibility.
If you know somebody is going to visit your desk, bury the document you need halfway down an existing stack and rummage through it with purpose when he/she arrives.
Based on ideas from BBC Television's The Office.
