Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI) Released at #SCIP09 in Chicago

Competitive Technical Intelligence focuses on science and technology (S&T) and provides methods and tools to help companies, labs and governments maintain a technical competitive edge. CTI often provides the longest future look at your competition versus other forms of competitive intelligence such as sales, product and financial. Order your copy of the recently released Competitive Technical Intelligence book through Bonnie Hohhof (bhohhof@scip.org).

Are We in a Rut in Competitive Intelligence Innovation? #SCIP09 Post-conference

More of the innovation that people shared was around process which involved social networking and more sophisticated monitoring and analysis tools. The cost of information acquisition is really inexpensive today even compared to 10 years ago, so companies can afford to text mine and use tools that provide visualization at a reasonable cost. We concluded that industry norms can be a deterrent to sharing innovation. However, as we build our human networks and develop trust, we often share our innovation with others, either one on one or among a smaller group.

Capture Competitor & Market Intelligence through Elicitation: Webinar Follow-up

Teach Sales elicitation skills: they don’t get it anywhere else and it will help them close more deals and collect information to help your company develop better products. Some of the best elicitors are more introverted since they are likely to be more thorough in their preparation for elicitation interviews. Introverted people are often better listeners than extroverts, so are often more skilled at getting the other guy to talk!

How to Detect and Prevent Lying Behaviors

Do you ever get that feeling that someone is lying to you, but you’re not quite sure, and you don’t want to ask them. We are surrounded by lies in our society, and it’s good to identify when you’re being lied to. As a competitive intelligence professional, it is imperative to be attuned as to whether the person you’re talking to is telling you the truth or not. Important decisions are being affected by the information and analysis we develop.

Capture Precious Competitor & Market Intelligence through Elicitation: Webinar April 8, 2009

When interviewing people, they might wonder why you are asking certain questions, and over time they might even become a little suspicious of your motives. A skilled elicitor will entice the other person to talk and share information almost without the other person realizing that they’re sharing. A key to successful elicitation, aside from practice, is to prepare how you would like the conversation to flow, and be prepared to answer questions the customer might ask you.

Opportunity Analysis in Tough Economic Times

The tough economic times are a great time to conduct an opportunity analysis. Study what your customers are going through and how they’re being impacted. This might be the perfect time to introduce a disruptive technology, especially if it saves the customer money or is easier to install and maintain than the “old” technology. It could be that there are more services you can offer your customers today since they’ve reduced their staff in areas where you are very qualified to step in.

Persuading through Competitive Intelligence Tools: the Cooperative Angle

People like stories and can be very persuasive, and I notice stories also make it easy to avoid ego conflicts. In this case study, we used customer’s decision-making criteria rather than our opinions, to persuasively communicate our analysis. However, don’t be so persuasive that you forget about the dignity of the people you are addressing. Tell a good story that leads them to your conclusions, as though your audience had thought them up themselves. This works with everyone I have ever addressed regardless of profession or culture.

Using Tactical Competitive Intelligence to Make a Strategic Decision: A Case Study

This post continues my story from the BCG Matrix Share discussion where we set the stage for an acquisition with a share of market visual. However, share of market by itself was not compelling enough for management. We created a company comparison based on 7 key customer buying criteria, and decided it would be more credible if we represented the comparisons from a customer’s point of view, casting aside our blind spots and biases.