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International Journal of Latest Research in Science and Technology ISSN (Online):2278-5299 – Volume 7, Issue 2: Page No.34 38 ,March-April 2018 https://www.mnkpublication.com/journal/ijlrst/index.php
REVIEW ON PRESENT, PAST AND FUTURE OF COMPETITIVE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE Shweta Rana Assistant Professor,Amity University Haryana [email protected]
– ’ Abstract Of today s fast paced technological innovations world, Competitive Technological Intelligence has become crucial for most of the business organization. It is one of the most important logical properties for business organization to have an edge in competition. This edge of technical intelligence can be anywhere ranging from products to services, customer acquisition to relationship management, marketing to branding, procurement to selling, product design to R&D and many others. My idea is to understand, how established organization and start-up organizations of academic institutions/e-selling companies are managing their Competitive Technical Intelligence? What is the importance of Technical Intelligence? What is the Past, Present and Future of Competitive Technological Intelligence
Keywords: Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI), Strategic decision making, Business Competitor
1. INTRODUCTION linked to the others by a feedback loop. We are describing — Competitive intelligence (CI)[7] is not a substitute for other them to you which is called as CI cycle bi CI professionals
business processes, but rather that it is comprised of a number A. Planning & direction (working with decision makers to of building blocks[2] that hopefully merges the information discover and hone their intelligence needs): CI should only obtained from these processes to create a comprehensive, focus on those business issues that are of critical importance interpretable picture of a company's possible future for a company to know. These issues are known as key competitive environment at any given time. It has many intelligence needs or requirements. Typical topics could aspects of which the following are utilized most often: include tracking new knowledge, potential new players and competitor intelligence [4], technical intelligence, market and potential new technological breakthroughs, assessing current marketing intelligence, financial intelligence, product technology use, emerging technology processes, potential intelligence and customer intelligence. disruptions and new approaches and applications, and CI is a management that enables executives to make assessing new business prospects, market niches and key smarter, more successful decisions, thereby minimizing risk, players' relations. A key decision maker might ask whether avoiding being blind-cited, and getting it right the first time. there are competing or complementary technologies, who the Executives are always surprised when their decisions or competitors are, what role technology plays in their strategies do not produce the desired results. The CI process competitive advantage [1] and what the potential applications enables executives within every area in their firms, from for a new technology are.
R&D to divisions that invest in tactics and long term business B. Collection activities (conducted legally and ethically): strategies to make the correct decisions. Furthermore, it is not Collection comes from a variety of different sources and a process that attempts to collect, analyze and convert gathering techniques for examination and verification during information into intelligence and provide management with the CI process. A variety of internal (information specialists, their exact answer they are after, but it attempts to collect legal and patent staff, and specialists in the company, for enough information to draw a reasonable conclusion for example technology forecasters and R&D staff), external immediate action. “ (technical colleagues, industry experts and analysts, Competitive intelligence is the action of defining, gathering, university staff and consultants), primary (verbal) and analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, secondary (published, written) sources should be used. There customers, competitors, and any aspect of the environment are a innumerable of secondary sources one could access, for needed to support executives and managers making strategic ” example internal databases, R&D plans, project proposals, decisions for an organization . Competitive intelligence – published research and market assessments, patent layers, activities can be basically grouped into two main types 1) databases, annual reports and science publications. In Tactical, which is a shorter-term activity and seeks to provide technical CI, information is rarely available directly from the input into issues such as capturing market share or increasing companies that are being targeted. The CI professional needs revenues; and 2) Strategic, which focuses on longer-term to create a network of sources interacting with the target issues such as key risks and opportunities facing the company, including suppliers of services and goods, diverse enterprise. Competitive intelligence is different from government agencies and customers. This network can help corporate or industrial espionage, which use illegal and provide the elusive pieces of data and information. In unethical methods to gain an unfair competitive advantage. addition, network analysis can reveal experts who will be The CI process is usually divided into five basic phases, each helpful in interpreting the findings.
Publication History MISaSnuNsc:r2ip2t 7R8ec-e5iv2ed9 9 : 9 M a r c h 2 0 1 8 34 Manuscript Accepted : 28 March 2018 Revision Received : 30 April 2018 Manuscript Published : 30 April 2018
International Journal of Latest Research in Science and Technology. time of turmoil of the Spring and Autumn period around the C. Analysis (interpreting data and compiling recommended sixth century B.C. Sun Tzu is one of the first to have actions): During this phase, information is turned into mentioned that a source of competitive advantage (in this intelligence through a process of interpretation and the results case against military enemies) could be acquired by superior should be useable in strategic decision-making. CTI is most knowledge of information. Whether they were aware of Sun valuable to guide and support various business decisions. To ’ Tzu s work or not, various States throughout history set up understand the competitor's ongoing activities and plans, systems of espionage and information gathering which could diverse signals have to be reviewed and interpreted to provide help decision makers in achieving victory. This trend clues about R&D, manufacturing and product rollout continued and was reinforced up until today, when most approaches. For example, a specific company's new research countries have set up intelligence programs for military and collaborations and scientist hiring can shed light on likely diplomatic purposes. Until recently, pre-eminence was given development priorities. The popular analysis tools used are to this side of intelligence, though evidence of intelligence scenario analysis, cost analysis (product, process and gathering for economic purposes has also existed. technology), trend analysis and technological assessments, and the popular Porter Five Forces, strengths, weaknesses, In 1986, the Society of Competitive Intelligence opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis and Professionals (SCIP) [8][5] was created to promote “ competitor/persons profiling. education and networking opportunities for business professionals working in the rapidly growing field of D. Dissemination (presenting findings to decision makers): competitive intelligence (the legal and ethical collection and The results of the CI process are communicated to those with analysis of information regarding the capabilities, the authority and responsibility to act on the findings in an ” vulnerabilities, and intentions of business competitors) . By appropriate format and at the right time. offering a chance for CI experts around the world to E. Feedback (taking into account the response of decision exchange ideas, this organization has enabled CI to become a makers and their needs for continued intelligence): CI more recognized field of corporate strategy.CI has from the requires appropriate policies, procedures and an infrastructure start been reinforced by the knowledge of intelligence experts so that employees may contribute effectively to the CI system from other fields. A good example of that is the CI unit of as well as gain the benefits from the CI process. Motorola where the former director of Intelligence was previously an intelligence officer for the CIA. The end of the I. CTI PAST: Cold War similarly liberated many intelligence experts who The traditional CTI process has become known as the were seeking new opportunities, further increasing the “ ” Herring Model of competitive intelligence after its most development of competitive intelligence. The 1990s also elegant articulator, Jan Herring. This is by now, quite familiar represent the development of competitive intelligence and consists of a five step process: throughout the world as SCIP extended its activities in the United Kingdom, Sweden and France. A. NEEDS ASSESSMENT: What is it that the decision “ makers need to know? What problem do they need to In 1997, France created the Ecole de Guerre ” recognize? What decisions do they need support for? Economique , the purpose of which is to train intelligence experts. During the 1980-1990s, various companies B. PLANNING: How are we going find the answers that successfully understood the strategic importance of will support these decisions? What sources are we going to Competitive Intelligence and applied it. This gave them an use? Who can I talk to? Where do I go to search my basic edge over competitors. Two companies are good examples of secondary information that will give me leads of additional this early use of CI: Motorola and IBM. people to talk to so I can start my primary collection activity? How will the data I end up with be analysed, and what is the MOTOROLA: time frame? Robert Galvin, the chairman of the Executive Committee at C. COLLECTION: Getting the information in; database Motorola, Inc. set up the CI department at Motorola on searches, phone interviews, working the network and the net. certain bases. If National Security was run by professionals, ’ he felt that the Intelligence department of a private D. ANALYSIS: Organizing the data into something that s ’ corporation should also be lead by intelligence professionals meaningful, and that will support the decision you ve been if positive results were to be obtained. Although the gathering asked to support and creating new insights and conclusions. of intelligence should be a central preoccupation to every ’ E. PRESENTATION: Communicating what you ve found person within the company, the actual CI duties could only be ’ to the decision maker who s going to use that intelligence to dealt with successfully by professionals. Only by recognizing “ make a decision, providing suggestions for action. this could real strategic decisions be made. The focus must ” always remain on the consumer says Galvin. Although he The use of intelligence, that is, the collection of available claims this idea is known by most, it is very often not information and the transforming of this information into applied. In order to be truly competitive, the strategy must useful intelligence to guide strategic decisions has been bear in mind the fact that its final purpose is to identify a widespread for thousands of years. Evidence of military use customer need. The development of a professional and of intelligence can be found as early as in books of the Old efficient CI unit within any company takes at least ten years. Testament nearly 3000 years ago. But the birth of a For this reason, CI must get the approval of top management, formalized approach to intelligence is often attributed to the and the long-term strategic benefits of a CI unit must be Chinese general Sun Tzu, who developed his concepts in the explained to all as short-term returns are unlikely to occur
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International Journal of Latest Research in Science and Technology. instantaneously. The CI department at Motorola is a tool that II. CTI PRESENT: should not depend on any branch or any individual within the “ ’ The Herring Model is good; it works, and there are company (not even the CEO). As Galvin puts it, it s there ’ ” numerous applications. But, we re working now in a for the corporation . The size of the CI department at “ ” knowledge culture. How do we imbed that process into Motorola was approximately 10 people, with 25 or 30 more something that takes advantage of a knowledge culture? A who would be the preferred interface between the intelligence new process has emerged, with the Herring cycle in the department and the rest of the functions within the company. middle. The newer model represents years of experience and Finally, Galvin defines the role of the CI unit in the future as a lot of synthesis done by the SCIP board. It is the best being the unit that is able to develop a precious knowledge of ’ reflection we have at this time of what we see going on in people s culture, and apply this knowledge to strategic industry. The new model adds a number of key elements to decisions. He illustrates this point with the successful ’ the Herring model: example of Motorola s penetration of the Japanese market ’ thanks to the recognition of the Japanese s respect for 1. The concept of an intelligence integrator authority figures. Motorola was therefore able to address its 2. The concept of an intelligence protector claims to respected figures, which facilitated the adoption of 3. The concept of a knowledge background to the activity Motorola products by Japanese people. Galvin believes that The intelligence integrators can be an individual or group this type of knowledge on people could be generalized by an that not only is developing the intelligence, but also using the Intelligence department. intelligence and communicating it to the senior decision ’ IBM: makers. It wasn t really clear before who these people were, In the early 1990s, IBM was in a difficult situation after but now they are beginning to emerge as a key element in the losing $14 billion over the 1991-1993 period. These intelligence process: the ones who are going to string the difficulties, as well as the arrival of Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. as nuggets together created by the core Herring process in the a new CEO, helped IBM to refocus its attention on context of the corporate strategy to create a higher-value competitors. These conditions provided the right environment intelligence product. The intelligence protectors again can be for drastic changes in the way CI was envisioned at IBM. CI an individual or group that is developing intelligence, but had previously been separated functionally, which led to a recognize that others are trying to extract your knowledge lack of clarity of the overall picture for decision makers. from you, and to use it to develop their own knowledge. A whole new discipline is appearing growing out of both IBM approached the implementation of a new CI team in a intelligence and security, the protection of not just internal novel way. It set up various CI teams to track the activities of intellectual capital, but internal knowledge capital as well. a dozen technology competitors. These teams were led by an “ This new model also recognizes that the intelligence process IBM executive and were made up of peer executives sits within the knowledge context of the company, both representing various IBM business units, a small core of CI ” internal (i.e., cultural) and external (i.e., intertribal). There is professionals, and representatives from functional areas . All “ knowledge within your organization which you access these teams were to be under the supervision of a small ” through your network (the intelligence professionals most corporate team , which would coordinate their efforts. The valuable asset), and knowledge outside your company which teams would communicate amongst themselves using IBM you access through your network also, but incorporates products, such as Lotus Notes, which would greatly increase — additional elements. These include knowledge creators the learning synergies across the organization. After this pilot academics and other theoretical thinkers, who are creating the project, various lessons were learned: Experts should be hired new paradigms you and your competitors will be following in to set the Intelligence project in motion as well as lead it; – 5 10 years; systems creators creating elegant systems, both cross-team communication is crucial and should be electronic and conceptual, which can augment the core developed even more; setting ethical rules could help to serve process; data creators creating new data models, again both as guidance during the project; finally, to be successfully electronic and conceptual, which can streamline the process. adopted, a CI project needs the support of senior management ’ “ ” It s important to be mindful that even the most sophisticated in order to be sold to the rest of the organization. systems, data, and frameworks are not the knowledge -itself, In 1995, IBM decided to implement their new CI operations or by inference, the intelligence. Knowledge is cultural, on the basis of what was accomplished in the test run. The CI hence a knowledge, or intelligence, database can really never — runs according to a similar process of teams under the exist much as many might like one to. Lastly, and most supervision and guidance of the Corporate Strategy group, significantly for assessing value, this new model focuses the — which also served as a relay to top-executives when they output stage on the decisions. That becomes the linchpin were establishing strategies. Cross-team communications not how many decisions you supported, but what was your were enhanced, and integration of information was done on a contribution to the strategy that that decision supported? more thorough basis which helped to generate a wider “ Competitive Intelligence has clearly grown in recent years, knowledge base. According to IBM, the results from our ” with much discussion on the evolution of the industry in the collective efforts have been positive . However, the past 10 years. Competitive Intelligence is increasingly being organization recognizes that CI is a long term project that thought of as a very important department in corporations, needs to be constantly refined and updated for it to deliver its and indications seem to show further increases are on the maximal potential. way. The current CI environment was shown to have the From these two examples of companies recognizing the following attributes in recent studies. importance of the CI function at an early stage
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International Journal of Latest Research in Science and Technology. Currently 90% of the information being gathered by relevant insightful suggested actions, strategies or businesses is focused internally, with the remainder decisions will continue to reap the rewards. focused externally. In many circles, this is thought Great imitability of product/service of as a backwards practice, and one that should be offering: companies are finding it much easier to corrected going forward duplicate offerings in the marketplace. It is no
In recent surveys, more than 70% of US executives longer sufficient to be first on the market; this say they have a CI system in place position must be sustained with strategic and The Society of Competitive Intelligence operational precision. The difficulties in preventing Professionals (SCIP) has 3000 members and 50 imitators from entering particular markets is also chapters worldwide becoming increasingly difficult because of the The estimated market for Competitive Intelligence corporate partnerships often required to resist these products and services is now reaching USD new market players. CI therefore plays an increasing $2billion role in sustaining market share. By knowing what Top firms in the CI industry include Motorola your potential current and future competitors are (known also as a pioneer in Competitive executing, planning and conceptualizing, you can Intelligence), IBM, Bank of America, JP Morgan help maintain your market position. Failure to do so Chase, Toyota Motor Credit and Citigroup. can have tremendous negative consequences.
III. CTI FUTURE: Increase in complexity and speed: data is now
What does the future hold for evolution of the CTI process? travelling at astonishing speeds because of improved As any good futurist would do, we need to broaden out our communication and information technology. While perspective here to make a viable, educated guess. There is a our human capabilities in dealing with data remain strong academic underpinning for many of the currently the same, CI allows a greater management of “ ” popular concepts of knowledge management. This would information. Managers are then able to deal with imply that while many other so-called management coherent, value-added information when “ ” implementing operational strategies. paradigms (which have been flavor of the year ) have had their day and passed on, knowledge management in some These 4 factors help explain the future trajectory of CI. With ’ form may become a more central aspect of continuing CEO s everywhere requesting stronger, more efficient CI business. If that is the case, then a successfully evolved CTI components in their corporate structures, one must not only process will not only take advantage of the knowledge consider ongoing CI practices and strategies. As with any architecture, but will become part of the core business business model, a look ahead in future CI tendencies is process creating corporate knowledge across the entire equally primordial. spectrum of product, or service, development. It will also be IV. CONCLUSION: involved in measuring the degree and direction in which that ’ knowledge is developing not only internally, but externally as There s no doubt that the need for well-informed business well.The recent emergence of Competitive Intelligence can decisions, as well as for general awareness of developments be explained by 4 major factors that will undoubtedly in the business environment[6], will remain acute. The continue to drive the industry: current state of management decision support gets more complicated as rapidly changing conditions often require fast Globalization: has heightened the level of reaction. Under these conditions, a need for right information competition by inciting new entrants in most at the right time and in the right place remains important, and markets. With global competition on the rise, the well-aimed and reasonable use of support technology can Competitive Intelligence allows for a greater increase decision making quality and efficiency.CI does use knowledge of the market, the competition and the some quantitative methods in conducting its analysis. To relative industry. As globalization will continue its draw a somewhat vague line, market research focuses on dominance on most markets, so will the need for ’ competitors and the firm s own interface with its customers effective CI. on an historic and real-time basis. It focuses on a broader Rise of the knowledge economy: with the abundance horizon, including potential competitors, the supply and of excessive and often times non-pertinent distribution chains, and research and development. In information flowing from every direction in a addition, its perspective is most often forward-looking. To company, it is essential to efficiently filter this play off an advertising slogan, CI seeks answers to questions ‘‘ ’’ information and transform what is deemed necessary like Where do they want to go tomorrow? Finally, CI, into intelligence. Proper filtering of information and because it is forward looking, is heavily qualitative in conversion into intelligence allows for better comparison with more market research and qualitative decision making from senior management which research.CTI also is not only limited to science and transitions into building expertise and ultimately technology. Even if CTI remains in this area the trking of creating sustainable corporate advantages. This competitor, the trend in standards, the impact of energy and knowledge economy era will see the circulation of material prices increase can be part of its preoccupations. growing amounts of weak, useless information This is the reason why that the countries which want to within organizations. Companies that choose to best maintain and industrial development must emphasize the key deal with the inflow of this information by applying
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International Journal of Latest Research in Science and Technology. role of CTI and must create various educational programs at the Master level or in continuing education in that field.
REFERENCES
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