Tools For Thought - Intelegia

In a previous post, I referred to the competitive intelligence term of “KITs” or key intelligence topics. KITs are essential to any internet intelligence researcher who wish to deliver relevant information to clients. In order to do so, selecting KITs should not be taken for granted. As a result, a structured approach to choosing key intelligence topics should be considered.

Based on my 10 + years of experience in field of competitive intelligence, I have utilized the following framework to establish key intelligence topics for many of my research mandates.

• Interview the client
• Assess proactive versus reactive strategies
• Attempt to match resources with KITs

Interview the client. Removing the guess work behind getting to know what relevant information is needed by decision makers will make life easier in the end. To have a structured interview with clients, send an email before the session outlining what will be discussed and how long the exercise should take. The email should prompt the client to brainstorm on their own to evaluate their needs for information. Ideally the interview should be conducted in person; however, travel restrictions may mean thesession has to be done via a conference call. Allow the client to express their needs as they wish.

Assess proactive versus reactive strategies. As proposed KITs are made available, professionals must reflect on the research strategies that have to be put into place based on the needs of the clients, an inventory of the tools and skills to be conducted. The inventory exercise should be based along the lines of the two forms of competitive intelligence: proactive and reactive.

a) Proactive competitive intelligence strategies call for researchers to provide information
quickly and wisely regarding changes in markets and competitors
b) Reactive competitive intelligence strategies call for researchers to track information as it is needed

Attempt to match resources with KITs. This step requires researchers to conduct an evaluation again; however, this particular exercise will tell if the mandate is feasible given the existing information resources. Researchers must now determine if they have access to the right outlets of information that will best respond to the KITs. To do so, all information sources should be examined on the basis of the content they provide. If
the sources do provide a sufficient amount of content that will answer the questions stated in the KITs, researchers can feel quite confident that the mandate can be carried out successfully. In situations where there is not a match, researchers must see if the information can be bought or if such information exists or can be gathered through primary research techniques.