Affinity International Consulting presents Futurepoint
Friday, December 23, 2016
Improving Your Competitive Intelligence
10 Tips for Efficiently Improving Your
Competitive Intelligence
Getting senior execs to make a decision is one of the hardest parts of
a strategist's job, improving your competitive intelligence isn't a
panacea but will help; here's how to do so more efficiently.
When trying to get senior decision-makers in a company to respond quickly to either a threat or an opportunity for the company, strategists tend to put a lot of effort into making their message as compelling as possible.
About half (51%, according to CEB data) of their effort goes into increasing the strength of the signal, so to speak, and is an approach that includes improving the quality of the information and presenting it in a more compelling way (see chart 1).
That doesn’t mean to say that it’s not worthwhile spending time on improving the quality of the data or making a presentation more compelling, just that it should be done as efficiently as possible. Heads of strategy in CEB’s network of strategy teams shared the following tips on quick, and easy ways to improve data quality and its delivery.
Chart 1: The levels of effort strategy teams put into increasing senior leaders’ acceptance of competitive intelligence Source: CEB analysis
Improve the Data Quality
Lead with assumptions: Start the conversation with non-financial statements about the future to avoid discussions about the validity of the data.
After all, it is hard to argue about the validity of a hypothetical statement.
Document the data gathering process: Track and make available detailed information about how the data was gathered.
Being upfront about data sources will answer possible questions in advance and help you gain credibility.
Triangulate data: Use a variety of sources (internal and external) and choose the best data – that which is corroborated by numerous independent sources.
Senior managers are less likely to question the validity of data that is supported by several unique sources.
Focus on predictive indicators: Predictive indicators help reveal which economies, sectors, or companies show relative strength.
Because these indicators are about what will be in the future, senior leaders are more forgiving about the need for accuracy.
Present Competitive Intelligence in a More Compelling Way
Speak the language of the audience: When sharing competitive intelligence (CI) with colleagues, take into account whom you are talking to and what their priorities are. Make the information as relevant to them as possible.
Use pre-reads intelligently: Sending pre-reading material only works when it is not overdone. Be selective about using it.
Pre-sell: People have their own ideas and they need time to accept new ones. Identify or create opportunities (e.g., one-on-one meetings) to share information before asking senior leaders to discuss it.
This is particularly true when sharing CI that is unexpected or that contradicts the conventional point of view.
Conduct war games: When people step out of their roles, they are able to temporarily remove their biases and understand the external environment better.
Use a third party to eliminate biases: Invite an outsider (e.g., topic or industry expert) to include the point of view of an objective bystander.
Someone that is not directly involved in the company will be able to understand where different stakeholders are coming from and provide guidance on good options for the firm.
Provide options on a course of action: Don’t present only a threat or only an opportunity; this leaves people with more questions than answers.
Provide different possible responses and explain the pros and cons associated with each of them. If people understand the implications of responding to a threat or an opportunity they will be more open to discussing it. Source CEB Global.
Sample list of colleges, our clients have attended.
Continual Professional Development
We provide comprehensive continual professional development to professional associations auch as
The Irish Law Society, Institute of Engineers of Ireland,
The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland and Association of
Chartered Certified Accountants and other leading professional associations.
Drop us your email
In return, as a valued client, we will
provide you with discount vouchers
on select upcoming programmes.
You will also receive advance purchase
notification on "high demand" master class
programmes.
Please note that we take your privacy seriously
Specialist Training
If you are a Corporate entity,
SME, or a "not for profit" organisation
with a specific niche training requirement,
please contact us.
With our extensive national and world-wide network
of training consultants, we are able to identify,
source and fully arrange your training
completely in line with your requirements.
Strategic Management
We are very proud to deliver the only short course on strategic management available in Ireland.
This course has been designed to be delivered in house and is specifically tailored for the Irish multi national IDA high value manufacturing and services sector.
The programme is delivered over 20 hours as an integrated format over modules decided by the client.
Strategy only works when everyone is on the same page and for this reason we offer this programme for each management forum to take advantage of this unique opportunity.
It is fundamental knowledge that companies that have a strong foundation and understanding of strategy and how it shapes future sustainable success are the business units that achieve prolonged success
within the greater company structure. Simply put, the business unit that talks the language of the CEO attracts the greatest interest and capital input.
Success is always built on strategy. See a sample of our strategic training work.
No comments:
Post a Comment