Competitive Intelligence Zeroing In On Company’s Intangible Assets…

Michael D. Moberly   May 8, 2015   ‘A blog where attention span really matters’.

Competitive (business) intelligence is alive and well and it’s certainly not all cyber-based even thought there is an abundance of off-the-shelf data mining software available that mitigates the tediousness and time associated with conventional approaches to business intelligence collection.

Perhaps what concerns me most has been the continued expansion of ‘legacy free players’ (Thomas Friedman, ‘The World Is Flat’). My definition of ‘legacy free players’ is quite similar to that of Mr. Friedman’s, that is, these individuals/groups may not be necessarily aligned with or employees of nation state sponsors which are frequently technology dependant and sophisticated, or even organized units/cadres of economic spies. Instead, ‘legacy free players’ are, for the most part, independent operators or groups of individuals whose country of origin and cultural perspective about honoring the proprietary information originated by – belonging to others is a relatively new concept insofar as respecting personal, let alone intellectual property rights. In other words, there is an absence of legal, social, or cultural legacy to others’ properties of the mind, i.e., intellectual – human capital.

Setting that aside for the moment, of all the business leaders and management team members I have had the good fortune of conversing over the past 25+ years, when I introduce the subject of competitive intelligence, a substantial percentage of the time, their initial response is embedded with favorable rationalizations ranging from…

  • everybody does it, to
  • one is foolish if they don’t engage in some manner of competitor – business intelligence.

I am aware of no original research – objective data to indicate such characterizations are as accurate as business leaders assume, based on my many years of work-research in this arena, one would be well advised to consider the consistency of the responses suggest a significant percentage of businesses regularly engage in some level – form of competitor-business intelligence.

While their (intelligence) collection and analysis techniques may not be as sophisticated, analytical, or strategically oriented as those conducted by the countless private (independent) competitor intelligence firms operating globally, the information targeted and collected usually provides business decision makers with useable prognosticative insights variously related to the plans, intentions, and capabilities of competitors, i.e., what they are doing, have done, or, are about to do!

Simply stated, I find the adverse affects (of competitor – business intelligence) usually materialize in one of four ways, that is, the purpose, intent, and/or objective are to…

  • undermine, erode, stifle, and otherwise get ahead of a competitors’ initiatives, competitive advantages, market position, and strategic planning.

Any company’s efforts to counter or mitigate the very real adverse affects of competitor intelligence begins with understanding one’s own company’s IA’s (intangible assets).  This means recognizing that IA’s comprise increasing percentages – 80+% of most company’s value sources of revenue and ‘building blocks for growth, profitability, and sustainability! More specifically, IA’s are the real drivers – underliers to company’s value and sources of revenue which are precisely what competitor-business intelligence operatives are seeking, whether, I might add, they actually realize it or not!

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