From Competitive Intelligence To Competitive Advantage

Yesterday's The Great Panel Debate - Tapping into Social Media for Effective Competitive Intelligence was very insightful and lively. Before the debate Nick and I had a chat about where CI could maximise on its use of social media. Here's what we discussed.

Competitive intelligence is all about finding out what the competition is doing. With social media the whole concept of getting information has become a lot more easy. People are now volunteering their knowledge. Yes of course there is plenty of information that is on the web and cannot be got. After all:

Image by Dave makes

However, it is possible to piece bits of information together from what peoples' networks are saying. For example, I often hear of someone winning business with a certain type of client. I can then look at their LinkedIn profile and see who they have become connected to recently and, quite often, bingo!

It is also possible to develop a relationship with the person you want to get the relationship from the different social networks and then arrange to meet them in person.

But all this is focusing on what the competition is doing. What is we were to look at all of this in a totally different way?

Steve Jobs famously did no market research and yet he was responsible for delivering tools that have changed the way in which we interact, forever. He didn't go to people and say "Think of something unimaginable and then tell me what you would like and how you would like it." Instead what he did was he commissioned the building of technology and then went to people and said "Have a look at this. You need it yesterday, it's the technology of tomorrow and it's available to you today...for a large sum of money which I am saying is actually small." (Or words to that effect.)

We're pretty sure that, although Jobs didn't do market research, he must have done a lot of finding out. Finding out where people spend too much time, too much money and too much effort doing things that could have been done a lot easier. What Jobs did was to focus on the problem, the "unarticulated need", rather than the competition. 

Adrian Newey with Sebastian VettelCompetitive Intelligence practitioners should differentiate between the articulated need and the unarticulated need i.e. the spoken and the unspoken. CI is good for short term benefits but what is really good is the opportunity for gaining a "competitive advantage". That can be done by focusing on the unarticulated needs. Find out where the customers are spending too much time, too much money and too much effort doing things that could be done a lot easier.

Let's use the analogy of a Formula 1 team. Many of the "mid pack" teams often copy what the teams at the front of the pack are doing. At best this allows the teams in the midfield to get to the front of the midfield. Adrain Newey, who is deemed as the engineer with the Midas Touch, was brought from a leading team into the startup team of Red Bull Racing just after they were bought from the mid pack Jaguar team. Newey has often said that the technology is not the key, it's the people looking at the problems. As a result Newey delivers championship-winning cars, and the midfield are there copying his designs to get ahead of their respective competiton. It took Adrian Newey six years to bring Red Bull Racing from a mid-field racing team to win the championship. Now in their second successive year of winning they are looking unbeatable. What they have is a Competitive Advantage.

So where does that leave practitioners of CI? I think there are some very clear steps:

1. Adapt to the new environment and learn the skills of social media.

It was surprising to me yesterday to learn how many people weren't on Facebook as a fear of privacy. I encouraged these people to look at the diagram above. If you want to keep something private, don't put it on the web. If you are in CI and are not on Facebook you have not opened a large resource that is freely available. The benefits of you get from connecting usually outweighs the risks that may or may not be there.

Tips: Don't put anything up there you don't want to be known publicly. Close down your privacy settings. I said yesterday it's amazing how many people call their boss an a**hole and have their privacy settings open. People like this.

2. Redefine your job description

Move away from the model of competitive intelligence and move towards the idea of competitive advantage. Focus on the problems that are being faced by your staff, your clients, your clients' clients - whoever you need to solve the problems of. Focus on the unarticulated or unspoken need.

3. Don't forget about the short term

Don't forget about the day job. OK Competitive Advantage is a great idea but in the mean time, let's be real, you need to focus on the breadwinning and competitive intelligence is where your income lies.

A question that kept popping up yesterday was "Where do I begin?" I hope this helps but I appreciate that this is a bit broad. If you feel you would like to break it down more please feel free to get in touch, either by leaving a comment or by contacting me directly. Thank you.