Archive for the ‘Competitive Intelligence’ Category:
1st Principle
CORPORATE STRATEGY
Corporate Strategy Competitive Intelligence Cycle
Planning
Collection
Analysis
Dissemination
Key Intelligence Topics for Corporate Strategy decision making
I. Assessment of Strategies
A. Focused Differentiation
B. Best Cost
C. Differentiation
D. Low Cost
E. Focused Low Cost
F. Market Skimming
G. Market Penetration
H. Related Diversification
I. Unrelated Diversification
J. Backward Integration
K. Forward Integration
L. Horizontal Integration
II. Consumer Perceptions
A. Negative Moment of Truth
B. Positive Moment of Truth
C. Usage
D. Attitude
E. Image
F. Market Segmentation
G. Customer Satisfaction
H. Brand Recall
I. Purchase Decision
J. Brand Association
K. Value Creation
L. Lifestyle
M. Personality
N. Product Attributes
O. Country of Origin
III. Current Operations
A. Value Chain Analysis
B. Benchmarking Analysis
C. Five Force Analysis
D. Brick & Click Strategy
IV. Competitor Capabilities
A. OODA Loop
B. Offensive Maneuvers
C. Defensive Maneuvers
D. Flanking Maneuvers
E. Guerilla Maneuvers
V. Evaluation of Market Life Cycle
A. Market Crystallization
B. Market Expansion
C. Market Fragmentation
D. Market Consolidation
E. Market Dissolution
VI. Service Triangle Interplay
A. Service Strategy
B. Systems & Procedures
C. People of the Organization
D. Service Strategy – Customer – People of the Organization
E. Systems & Procedures – Customer – People of the Organization
F. Systems & Procedures – Customer – Service Strategy
G. Service Strategy – Systems & Procedures – People of the Organization
Corporate Strategy Six Sigma Improvement Approach cycle for Information Analysis
Define
Measure
Analyze
Improve
Control
Corporate Strategy 5S cycle of “Continuous Improvement” for Analysis of Information
Sort
Set in order
Shine
Standardize
Sustain
Corporate Strategy “8 D” cycle of Problem Solving Approach for Analysis of Information
Team effort
Describe the problem
Implement and verify short term corrective action
Define and verify root causes
Verify corrective action
Prevent reoccurrence
Motivate your team
FMEA Analysis for Corporate Strategy
Severity
Occurrence
Detection
RPN
Fault Tree Analysis for Corporate Strategy
Reliability Analysis
Safety Analysis
BUSINESS STRATEGY
Business Strategy Competitive Intelligence Cycle
Planning
Collection
Analysis
Dissemination
Key Intelligence Topics for Business Strategy decision making
I. Assessment of Strategies
A. Focused Differentiation
B. Best Cost
C. Differentiation
D. Low Cost
E. Focused Low Cost
F. Market Skimming
G. Market Penetration
H. Related Diversification
I. Unrelated Diversification
J. Backward Integration
K. Forward Integration
L. Horizontal Integration
II. Consumer Perceptions
A. Negative Moment of Truth
B. Positive Moment of Truth
C. Usage
D. Attitude
E. Image
F. Market Segmentation
G. Customer Satisfaction
H. Brand Recall
I. Purchase Decision
J. Brand Association
K. Value Creation
L. Lifestyle
M. Personality
N. Product Attributes
O. Country of Origin
III. Current Operations
A. Value Chain Analysis
B. Benchmarking Analysis
C. Five Force Analysis
D. Brick & Click Strategy
IV. Competitor Capabilities
A. OODA Loop
B. Offensive Maneuvers
C. Defensive Maneuvers
D. Flanking Maneuvers
E. Guerilla Maneuvers
V. Evaluation of Market Life Cycle
A. Market Crystallization
B. Market Expansion
C. Market Fragmentation
D. Market Consolidation
E. Market Dissolution
VI. Service Triangle Interplay
A. Service Strategy
B. Systems & Procedures
C. People of the Organization
D. Service Strategy – Customer – People of the Organization
E. Systems & Procedures – Customer – People of the Organization
F. Systems & Procedures – Customer – Service Strategy
G. Service Strategy – Systems & Procedures – People of the Organization
Business Strategy Six Sigma cycle Analysis for Information
Define
Measure
Analyze
Improve
Control
Business Strategy 5S cycle of “Continuous Improvement” Analysis for Information
Sort
Set in order
Shine
Standardize
Sustain
Business Strategy “8 D” cycle of Problem Solving Approach for Analysis of Information
Team effort
Describe the problem
Implement and verify short term corrective action
Define and verify root causes
Verify corrective action
Prevent reoccurrence
Motivate your team
FMEA Analysis for Business Strategy
Severity
Occurrence
Detection
RPN
Fault Tree Analysis for Business Strategy
Reliability Analysis
Safety Analysis
FUNCTIONAL STRATEGY
Functional Strategy Competitive Intelligence Cycle
Planning
Collection
Analysis
Dissemination
Key Intelligence Topics for Functional Strategy decision making
1. Assessment of Strategies
A. Focused Differentiation
B. Best Cost
C. Differentiation
D. Low Cost
E. Focused Low Cost
F. Market Skimming
G. Market Penetration
H. Related Diversification
I. Unrelated Diversification
J. Backward Integration
K. Forward Integration
L. Horizontal Integration
II. Consumer Perceptions
A. Negative Moment of Truth
B. Positive Moment of Truth
C. Usage
D. Attitude
E. Image
F. Market Segmentation
G. Customer Satisfaction
H. Brand Recall
I. Purchase Decision
J. Brand Association
K. Value Creation
L. Lifestyle
M. Personality
N. Product Attributes
O. Country of Origin
III. Current Operations
A. Value Chain Analysis
B. Benchmarking Analysis
C. Five Force Analysis
D. Brick & Click Strategy
IV. Competitor Capabilities
A. OODA Loop
B. Offensive Maneuvers
C. Defensive Maneuvers
D. Flanking Maneuvers
E. Guerilla Maneuvers
V. Evaluation of Market Life Cycle
A. Market Crystallization
B. Market Expansion
C. Market Fragmentation
D. Market Consolidation
E. Market Dissolution
VI. Service Triangle Interplay
A. Service Strategy
B. Systems & Procedures
C. People of the Organization
D. Service Strategy – Customer – People of the Organization
E. Systems & Procedures – Customer – People of the Organization
F. Systems & Procedures – Customer – Service Strategy
G. Service Strategy – Systems & Procedures – People of the Organization
Functional Strategy Six Sigma cycle for Information Analysis
Define
Measure
Analyze
Improve
Control
Functional Strategy 5S cycle of “Continuous Improvement” for Analysis of Information
Sort
Set in order
Shine
Standardize
Sustain
Functional Strategy “8 D” cycle of Problem Solving Approach for Analysis of Information
Team effort
Describe the problem
Implement and verify short term corrective action
Define and verify root causes
Verify corrective action
Prevent reoccurrence
Motivate your team
FMEA Analysis for Functional Strategy
Severity
Occurrence
Detection
RPN
Fault Tree Analysis for Functional Strategy
Reliability Analysis
Safety Analysis
In today’s operating environment, competitors are using integrated marketing communication to acquire market share.
Competitive Intelligence helps organizations generate early warning by helping organizations interpret competitor’s de-positioning tactics.
Public Relations is a lethal tool of competitive intelligence which organizations use to influence public perception which results in creating a buzz in the market which helps in retaining market share.
Public Relations is a communication tool which motivates behavior resulting in improved market share.
Competitive Intelligence is a tool used to help clients manage issues by combining influences of public attitudes, public perceptions, public behavior and public policy.
This way we see that a simple tool of public relations in competitive intelligence gives a greater RoI which help companies in positioning themselves as a brand.
In the long run it is about incubating a brand and sustaining it and eventually creating a differentiation based on quality, service and competence.
In the normal day to day positioning of organizations, PR helps a company to reposition itself.
Using competitive intelligence, public relations is used to create third party endorsements which results in manipulating public behavior.
What matters is that does the market hold our organization in positive light and this is possible by subtly manipulating market perception using an emotional connect to our brand.
Competitive Intelligence uses poll technique combined with demographic and psychographic profiling based on analysis of information to find out what images and messages will resonate with target audiences to be competitive, organizations monitor competition, spread disinformation and rally citizen groups to raise issues thereby de-positioning competitors in the minds of the wider target audience.
Competitive Intelligence can be used for managing public relations and mitigating crisis and neutralize competitor’s grass roots activist groups. It also helps us identify radicals, opportunists, idealists and realists’ activist groups of competitors which they use to spread this information.
Competitive Intelligence enables us to manage the corporate risks of social activist groups which can be achieved in the following manner i.e. isolating the radicals, cultivating and educating the idealists into realists and finally co-opting the realists. The ‘radicals’ used by competitors may have the agenda of generating political empowerment and social justice that can be marginalized and discredited.
The idealists used by competitors are exposed to reeducation and psychological persuasion using competitive intelligence. Pragmatic realists and opportunists are manipulated through trade-offs and perceptions of “partial victories”.
Competitors manipulate citizen groups and fake grass roots mobilization, in other words it means Astroturfing. Some competitors may use viral marketing techniques but if we have our counterintelligence in place, we can prevent competitors from manipulating market perception.
Five Force Analysis
Competitive intelligence involves monitoring the operating environment. We need to monitor the suppliers, customers, substitution effect, threat of new entrants and competitive rivalry in the market place.
What we need to understand that a supplier of today could become a parallel or latent or existing competitor tomorrow and if we are able to monitor suppliers we can anticipate whether they will be going in for related diversification or unrelated diversification or backward of forward integration for being competitive in the market place.
This we call early warning if we are able to detect much in advance. A supplier of yesterday could become a lateral competitor or parallel competitor or existing competitor of tomorrow.
We need to monitor the substitution effect ie the lateral competitors and parallel competitors who eat into our market share. Competitive intelligence helps us identify competitors who eat into the market share by offering substitution alternatives to customers. These competitors who are our parallel competitors of today could become existing competitors of tomorrow who by using related diversification could contest for the same market space.
Customers need to be monitored to work on customer acquisition and customer retention efforts. When we monitor our customers and competitors customers we are able to plan our customer acquisition and customer retention strategies. Inputs for creating a ladder of loyalty are generated here and we can move the existing customer to becoming a client and a client to becoming a supporter and a supporter to becoming an advocate of our products and services who by word of mouth publicity generate goodwill can create positive perception in the eyes of the target segment.
New entrants need to be monitored as they would compete with us for the market space.
Anew entrant could be a existing competitor who is using either low cost or best cost or differentiation or focused low cost or focused differentiation strategy to reposition in the market segment. On the other hand a new entrant could be a lateral competitor who enters into our market space through unrelated diversification or backward or forward integration or related diversification. Further a new entrant could be a parallel competitor who may become our existing competitor through related diversification or backward or forward integration.
Further we need to keep our eye on the ball and monitor our existing competitors who may be low cost option providers and now are considering differentiation or best cost strategy to enter into our market space.
The ability to anticipate competitor movement by understanding strategic options is another way to being competitive. An existing competitor may use strategic options such as low cost or differentiation or best cost or focused low cost or focused differentiation and effect our market share.
Further when we monitor the environment and analyze the information we are able to use role playing and scenarios to generate early warning.
Written on June 28th, 2010 by Rishabha Singh Rathoreno shouts
The Department of Defense (DoD) defines deception as: “those measures designed to mislead the enemy by manipulation, distortion, or falsification of evidence to induce the enemy to react in a manner prejudicial to the enemy’s interests.”
Deception in warfare is probably as old as armed conflict itself. The logic of confusing an adversary is obvious, and the rewards can be realized very quickly.
A fundamental dichotomy to be found in this confusing world is the division of deception into “active”and “passive”categories.
A passive deception is designed to hide real intentions and capabilities from an adversary. You are hiding something which really exists.
Active deception, on the other hand, is the process of providing an adversary with evidence of intentions and capabilities which you do not, in fact, possess. Here you are showing your enemy something which is not real.
This dichotomy is most often associated with camouflage, but is not limited to this field.
Operational success and organizational survival can come only through strict observance of the organization’s rules of security and deception, based on a thorough and detailed knowledge of the enemy’s methods of operation.
Deception depends on two criteria: first, it is intentional; and, second, it is designed to gain an advantage for the practitioner.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS RELATING TO DECEPTION
Strategic Deception: Deception which disguises your basic objectives, intentions, strategies, and capabilities.
Operational Deception: Deception which confuses or diverts an adversary in regard to a specific operation or action you are preparing to conduct.
Tactical Deception: Deception which misleads others while they are actively involved in competition with you, your interests, or your forces.
“A”Type Deception: “Ambiguity Deception”geared toward creating general confusion.
“M”Type Deception: “Misleading Deception”designed to mislead an adversary into a specific and preconceived direction.
Fabrication: The creation of false information or images to mislead an adversary as to your intentions and/or capabilities. This is deception via manufactured data (e.g., forgeries).
Manipulation: The use of true or factual data in such a way as to create a false impression. The information is not false, but through using it out of context, leaving out some of the details, or providing a false balance of emphasis, the impression is skewed (e.g., being quoted out of context).
Active Deception: Any attempt to create the impression of intentions and capabilities which you do not, in fact, possess.
Passive Deception: Efforts designed to prevent detection of your actual capabilities and intentions.
Denial: Methods used to conceal state and military secrets, particularly from foreign intelligence collection.
Deception (as used in the The manipulation of information and perceptions combination “Denial and to induce the target of that deception to take or not Deception”): take an action, thereby benefiting the deceiver.
Note: “Denial and deception are interrelated. Denial is the basis for a successful deception.
Dezinformatsia: The dissemination of false or misleading information intended to confuse, discredit or embarrass the enemy.
Maskirovka: “A means of securing the combat operations and daily activity of forces; a complex of measures designed to mislead the enemy as to the presence and disposition of forces and various military objects, their condition, combat readiness and operations and also the plans of the commander
Passive Camouflage: The disguise or cloaking of forces and/or facilities to prevent their detection by an enemy.
Active Camouflage: The artificial creation of the image or impression that you have a force or capability that does not actually exist.
Diversion: The intentional distraction of an enemy’s attention away from the area of interest or attack. Two basic types: feint and demonstration.
Feint: An attack by friendly forces to distract enemy attention from your main area of interest or attack.
Demonstration: The deployment of forces to distract an enemy, but such a deployment does not usually include actual contact or combat. The purpose of a diversion is simple―to mislead an enemy away from your real operations and objectives.
Conditioning: The repetition of what could be preparations for a hostile action without conducting hostilities― thereby lulling the victim into a false sense of security. This is a variation of the “familiarity breeds contempt”theme.
Cover: The use of an apparently non threatening activity to disguise preparation for or initiation of a hostile act. A common example is the use of a training exercise to hide preparations for an attack.
Note: Conditioning and cover may occur in combination with one another―they can be mutually supportive. A common example is a military training exercise.
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Filed under Competitive Intelligence
Tags:Active Camouflage, Denial, Dezinformatsia, Diversion, Fabrication, Feint, Manipulation, Operational Deception, Passive Camouflage, Strategic Deception, Tactical Deception, “A”Type Deception, “M”Type Deception
Paralysis in Competitive Intelligence.
Paralysis in competitive intelligence happens most of the time because of the inability of a competitive intelligence analyst to interpret signals correctly. Most human beings are affected by sensory perception.
What a competitive intelligence analyst needs to be careful about and take into consideration are the following pitfalls which cloud decision making and thereby affect competitive intelligence.
Insight, a rare commodity, can get clouded by the subtle influences of the following thinking and behavioral flaws which affect a competitive intelligence analyst’s ability.
- Ambiguity effect – the avoidance of options for which missing information makes the probability seem “unknown”.
- Anchoring effect – the tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor,” on a past reference or on one trait or piece of information when making decisions.
- Intentional bias – neglect of relevant data when making judgments of a correlation or association.
- Authority bias – the tendency to value an ambiguous stimulus (e.g., an art performance) according to the opinion of someone who is seen as an authority on the topic.
- Availability heuristic – estimating what is more likely by what is more available in memory, which is biased toward vivid, unusual, or emotionally charged examples.
- Availability cascade – a self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse.
- Belief bias – an effect where someone’s evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion.
- Clustering illusion – the tendency to see patterns where actually none exist.
- Capability bias – The tendency to believe that the closer average performance is to a target, the tighter the distribution of the data set.
- Conjunction fallacy – the tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than general ones.
- Disposition effect – the tendency to sell assets that have increased in value but hold assets that have decreased in value.
- Gambler’s fallacy – the tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged. Results from an erroneous conceptualization of the Law of large numbers.
- Hawthorne effect – the tendency of people to perform or perceive differently when they know that they are being observed.
- Hindsight bias – sometimes called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, the inclination to see past events as being predictable.
- Illusory correlation – beliefs that inaccurately suppose a relationship between a certain type of action and an effect.
- Last illusion — the belief that someone must know what is going on. Coined by Brian Eno.
- Ludic fallacy – the analysis of chance-related problems according to the belief that the unstructured randomness found in life resembles the structured randomness found in games.
- Neglect of prior base rates effect – the tendency to neglect known odds when reevaluating odds in light of weak evidence.
- Observer-expectancy effect – when a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it.
- Optimism bias – the systematic tendency to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions.
- Ostrich effect – ignoring an obvious (negative) situation.
- Overconfidence effect – excessive confidence in one’s own answers to questions. For example, for certain types of question, answers that people rate as “99% certain” turn out to be wrong 40% of the time.
- Positive outcome bias – a tendency in prediction to overestimate the probability of good things happening to them.
- Pareidolia – a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) is perceived as significant, e.g., seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse.
- Primacy effect – the tendency to weigh initial events more than subsequent events.
- Recency effect – the tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events.
- Disregard of regression toward the mean – the tendency to expect extreme performance to continue.
- Selection bias – a distortion of evidence or data that arises from the way that the data are collected.
- Stereotyping – expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.
- Subadditivity effect – the tendency to judge probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts.
- Subjective validation – perception that something is true if a subject’s belief demands it to be true. Also assigns perceived connections between coincidences.
- Survivorship bias – concentrating on the people or things that “survived” some process and ignoring those that didn’t, or arguing that a strategy is effective given the winners, while ignoring the large amount of losers.
- Telescoping effect – the effect that recent events appear to have occurred more remotely and remote events appear to have occurred more recently.
- Texas sharpshooter fallacy – the fallacy of selecting or adjusting a hypothesis after the data is collected, making it impossible to test the hypothesis fairly. Refers to the concept of firing shots at a barn door, drawing a circle around the best group, and declaring that to be the target.
- Well travelled road effect – underestimation of the duration taken to traverse oft-traveled routes and over-estimate the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes.
- Bandwagon effect – a competitive intelligence analyst may suffer from herd mentality.
- Base rate fallacy – ignoring available statistical data in favor of particulars.
- Bias blind spot – the tendency not to compensate for one’s own cognitive biases.
- Choice-supportive bias – the tendency to remember one’s choices as better than they actually were.
- Confirmation bias – the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.
- Congruence bias – the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, in contrast to tests of possible alternative hypotheses.
- Contrast effect – the enhancement or diminishing of a weight or other measurement when compared with a recently observed contrasting object.
- Déformation professionnelle – the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one’s own profession, forgetting any broader point of view.
- Distinction bias – the tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.
- Experimenter’s or Expectation bias – the tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations.
- Focusing effect – prediction bias occurring when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.
- Framing – Using an approach or description of the situation or issue that is too narrow. Also framing effect – drawing different conclusions based on how data is presented.
- Hyperbolic discounting – the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, where the tendency increases the closer to the present both payoffs are.
- Illusion of control – the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly cannot.
- Impact bias – the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.
- Information bias – the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.
- Interloper effect – the tendency to value third party consultation as objective, confirming, and without motive. Also consultation paradox, the conclusion that solutions proposed by existing personnel within an organization are less likely to receive support than from those recruited for that purpose.
- Irrational escalation – the tendency to make irrational decisions based upon rational decisions in the past or to justify actions already taken.
- Mere exposure effect – the tendency for people to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them.
- Moral credential effect – the tendency of a track record of non-prejudice to increase subsequent prejudice.
- Need for Closure – the need to reach a verdict in important matters; to have an answer and to escape the feeling of doubt and uncertainty. The personal context (time or social pressure) might increase this bias.
- Negativity bias – phenomenon by which humans pay more attention to and give more weight to negative than positive experiences or other kinds of information.
- Neglect of probability – the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.
- Normalcy bias – the refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.
- Not Invented Here – the tendency to ignore that a product or solution already exists, because its source is seen as an “enemy” or as “inferior”.
- Omission bias – the tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).
- Outcome bias – the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.
- Planning fallacy – the tendency to underestimate task-completion times.
- Pseudo certainty effect – the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.
- Reactance – the urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice.
- Restraint bias – the tendency to overestimate one’s ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.
- Selective perception – the tendency for expectations to affect perception.
- Semmelweis reflex – the tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts an established paradigm.
- Status quo bias – the tendency for people to like things to stay relatively the same .
- Von Restorff effect – the tendency for an item that “stands out like a sore thumb” to be more likely to be remembered than other items.
- Wishful thinking – the formation of beliefs and the making of decisions according to what is pleasing to imagine instead of by appeal to evidence or rationality.
- Zero-risk bias – preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
- Actor-observer bias – the tendency for explanations of other individuals’ behaviors to overemphasize the influence of their personality and underemphasize the influence of their situation. However, this is coupled with the opposite tendency for the self in that explanations for our own behaviors overemphasize the influence of our situation and underemphasize the influence of our own personality.
- Egocentric bias – occurs when people claim more responsibility for themselves for the results of a joint action than an outside observer would.
- Barnum Effect – the tendency to give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.
- False consensus effect – the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.
- Fundamental attribution error – the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior.
- Halo effect – the tendency for a person’s positive or negative traits to “spill over” from one area of their personality to another in others’ perceptions of them.
- Herd instinct – Common tendency to adopt the opinions and follow the behaviors of the majority to feel safer and to avoid conflict.
- Illusion of asymmetric insight – people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers’ knowledge of them.
- Illusion of transparency – people overestimate others’ ability to know them, and they also overestimate their ability to know others.
- Illusory superiority – overestimating one’s desirable qualities, and underestimating undesirable qualities, relative to other people.
- In-group bias – the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups.
- Just-world phenomenon – the tendency for people to believe that the world is just and therefore people “get what they deserve.”
- Notational bias – a form of cultural bias in which the notational conventions of recording data biases the appearance of that data toward (or away from) the system upon which the notational schema is based.
- Out-group homogeneity bias – individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups.
- Projection bias – the tendency to unconsciously assume that others share the same or similar thoughts, beliefs, values, or positions.
- Self-serving bias (also called “behavioral confirmation effect”) – the tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests.
- Self-fulfilling prophecy – the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or not) confirm existing attitudes.
- System justification – the tendency to defend and bolster the status quo. Existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest.
- Trait ascription bias – the tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior and mood while viewing others as much more predictable.
- Ultimate attribution error – Similar to the fundamental attribution error, in this error a person is likely to make an internal attribution to an entire group instead of the individuals within the group.
www.corporaterisks.info
Advisor, Corporate Risks
riskmitigator@yahoo.com
Assistant Professor, MBA Competitive Intelligence & Corporate Warfare program
Extracting and Interpreting Emissions in Competitive intelligence
It is not the competitors organization one faces that is important but the think tank that controls the organization that needs profiling. If one can understand how the competitors think tank functions, one can anticipate how the competitors organization will act and react to ones maneuvers in the market.
One needs to be sharp enough to interpret the subtle emissions that competitors reflexively emit about their innermost thoughts and intentions.
One should never let ones mask down as the competitor is watching to interpret ones emotions as they indulge in role playing to anticipate your intentions and capabilities.
Develop the intuitive ability to penetrate the veil and deception which the competitor creates by intentionally sending out emissions in OSINT for you to read and work on complex scenarios.
Your analysts will always interpret information through their own preconceptions and prejudices, it is unfortunately a failing of a human mind.
If the analyst lacks insight into the complexity of a human mind, one will always remain a prisoner of ones perception. There are so many variables such as political ideology, religious ideology and individual ideology coupled with the class and caste system influences that influence perceptions of the target as well as the analyst. This makes extraction of information by discreet and subtle probe very complex, forget being dumb enough to call or meet the competitors think tank and believe in your ability to extract information.
Analysis is always perception driven. Human beings always wear a veil of illusion. They will never let their guard down and let you get a secret glimpse into their souls. Early in life one learns to be competitive by masking ones true feelings and emotions and learns that communication is never a tool to express emotions but to influence human behavior.
You are sadly mistaken if you consider the competitors think tank to be gullible and retarded as a moron that by your discreet questions, you will be able to extract information. You are able to extract what the think tank wants you to extract and you relish in your ability to extract information.
Intuition always warns when competitors probe through OSINT and this is why OSINT is always doctored to create a rouse. The deliberate murkiness makes extraction of information difficult while using active intelligence tools in competitive intelligence.
It is inherent in the nature of a human being to conceal their thoughts, and thoughts and actions always have a dissonance as the competitors competitive intelligence operators are always scanning the environment to interpret overt as well as subtle emissions. But it is unconsciously that human beings betray their intentions and this is an art which if you have not mastered, you will never be able to interpret signals in the manner you should interpret them.
When you profile people and categorize them into a personality type, have you forgotten that the competitors competitive intelligence operator may intentionally lead you up a garden path because the subject wants you to profile and categorize the subject as a particular personality type.
Never underestimate the intelligence of a human mind and lastly the intelligence of a competitive intelligence operator of the competitor who doctors information for you to play with and lets you derive the cheap thrill of believing that you have superior information extraction capability.
It is at times of crisis that you may believe that the multiple masks which human beings use may be breached. In ordinary human beings it is possible to breach a couple of masks of deception that they wear but breaching the mask of the think tank of a competitor requires a very powerful intuition.
As a competitive intelligence analyst you need to understand that it is the quality of information that is more important than the quantity of information that you harvest.
A competitors think tank will always plant moles and mislead, you think that the competitors organization follows 10 commandments and the Bible and some code of ethics.
The moles planted by the competitor are handled by a very competent handler who is trained in the art of making the organization competitive and you believe that you will be able to penetrate the “veil of illusion” with your state of the art technology.
Human beings leave strong and subtle emissions in OSINT and let you gather and analyze information, but what if the competitors competitive intelligence operator intentionally leaves a paper trail for you to follow?
The competitors competitive intelligence operators are not complacent as the competitor is always profiling you and yet innovating and constantly adapting to outflank and outmaneuver your organization in the corporate battlefield.
Never forget that competitive intelligence is anticipating competitors actions and reactions to your moves.
The competitors competitive intelligence team is as smart as you, if not superior.
www.corporaterisks.info
Advisor, Corporate Risks
riskmitigator@yahoo.com
Assistant Professor, MBA Competitive Intelligence & Corporate Warfare program
Every company in India monitors competition using either Passive Intelligence and Semi Active intelligence and Human Intelligence
Nobody in India wants to talk about two letter word ie CI. They do not call it competitive intelligence.
Leading companies monitor the environment through open source emissions through Financial Times, Economic Times etc.
Every leading business house watches business news channels.
Scanning of the environment is done using External Auditors, Internal Auditors, legal experts.
All management tools such as Five Force Analysis, SWOT Analysis, Value Chain Analysis, PEST Analysis are used by employees in the organisations.
Indian businesses derive Low Cost advantage as white collar workers come at lower salaries.
Industry reports are available through FICCI and CII
FICCI membership has over 1500 corporates and over 500 chambers of commerce and business associations, FICCI espouses the shared vision of Indian businesses and speaks directly and indirectly for over 2,50,000 business units. They monitor the environment and help Indian businesses become competitive.
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) works to create and sustain an environment conducive to the growth of industry in India, partnering industry and government alike through advisory and consultative processes. CII is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry led and industry managed organisation, playing a proactive role in India’s development process. Founded over 114 years ago, it is India’s premier business association, with a direct membership of over 7800 organisations from the private as well as public sectors, including SMEs and MNCs, and an indirect membership of over 90,000 companies from around 385 national and regional sectoral associations.
There are Business Intelligence companies in India who sell softwares to Indian corporates to monitor open source emissions.
There are database providers in India, who sell databases and industry reports and credit reports
Even global companies are hush hush about the two letter word called CI.
Information Warfare is on the rise.
Existence of Information Warfare – Class II
To make sure that the competitor will not be the first in the market with a new product, corporate espionage is on the rise and the need of the hour is to use Competitive Intelligence.
Most companies understand the need for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) but because of the existence of counterfeit brands in the market, the Government needs to take more stringent actions.
Existence of Information Warfare – III level
It is common to see Class III Information Warfare taking place, where a competitor or vested interests may spread information real or fictious to De-Position a competitor and Re-Position their own brand.
Every organisation in India has the eye on the ball. Everybody monitors competitors and undertakes consumer research either in house or it is outsourced.
In the last 5 years, MBA Competitive Intelligence & Corporate Warfare by Amity Institute of Competitive Intelligence, Amity University Uttar Pradesh, India has mushroomed to teach competitive intelligence.
Everybody in India practices competitive intelligence in some form or the other but they do not call it CI.
What India really lacks is not Hindsight Analysis but lacks Insight and the ability to Foresee.
Insight is the weakness which Indian companies suffer from, Insight cannot be replaced by business intelligence softwares or artificial intelligence or industry experts or management consultants.
Shortfall is of people who can sift through Micro and the Macro picture and become true competitive intelligence experts.
Again the age old question of whether mind set is important or skill set is important.
Competitive Intelligence is actually Perception driven, either you can use Insight and provide cutting edge Intelligence which is competitive or you cannot.
VIVEK RAGHUVANSHI
www.corporaterisks.info
Advisor, Corporate Risks
riskmitigator@yahoo.com
Companies are now proactively looking outside their walls considering all sources of innovation, both internal and external, to remain competitive, by using Innovation Scouts.
By: Avner Barnea*
Ten years ago a Japanese electronic company made a strategic decision to leave this business because the TV set industry turned to be a commodity with rapid declining profits, and to dive into the development of the next generation. After a few years this company became a world leader with its LCD TV sets and its revenues set sky peaks.
Fast changes in the modern era forced firms to be ahead of competitors and identify innovations early, otherwise they would not survive.
A few years ago the an intriguing study was published exhibited that a third of the world’s leading companies according to Fortune 500 list disappeared from the marketplace between 1970 – 1983. This evidence supports the assumption that without innovation companies would not exist.
Innovation – the key for survival
Until recent years, companies did not allow employees to promote innovative ideas and the focus was on performing daily tasks. Management was characterized by controlled processes striving to minimize the number of failures. One result was that the spirit of entrepreneurial thinking could not “rise”.
Tom Peters, the world leading thinker in the field of management, have said – “get innovative or die” – referred to the fact that the existing managements lead companies to continue the existing on the expense of new directions.
Innovation Scouting
Innovation scouting is a systematic search for innovation in any field bringing its findings to the attention of the decision-makers to decide whether and how to proceed with the idea to make it a product.
The historical roots of innovation scouting, when it was not called by that name, were among the lonely inventors who had a tremendous urge to discover and place innovations on the map of world knowledge.
Innovation scouting encourages existing employees for search innovation and ideas that would bring a competitive advantage. It is no coincidence that from its early days, Google has encouraged its employees to engage in some of their time developing new ideas.
Recently, more decision makers are confronting with two types of uncertainties- whether to continue the innovative direction and secondly whether to enter a new business line due to the innovation.
In recent years energy took an outstanding innovation direction, including renewable energies. An exciting example of innovation in energy use is the world’s largest cement producer Cemex which was searching for innovative concrete formula in order to bring a substantial reduction of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide, through the use of substitutes derive from the sugar industry and rice by-products.
An Update on Innovation Scouting
Successful innovation scouting is a combination of several factors – internal factors within the firm itself together with external partners including research institutions, mainly in the academy.
If in the past the Americans were leading the innovation field worldwide, in recent years the Japanese are winning this race as indicating by the registration of more new patents
One of the most significant moves in the automotive industry in 50 years was the development of the hybrid engine. This technological breakthrough was definitely a creation of innovation through systematic activity of the Japanese car producer innovation scouting teams. This innovation gave the company a technological advantage over the competition for almost ten years.
Pharmaceuticals are one of the leading industries of innovation. This industry is conducting systematic monitoring in medical innovation that can produce significant competitive advantage by early identification of new drugs.
Breakthroughs in innovations often come at the expense of existing products. Professor Clayton Christensen in his famous book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” has named them as – Disruptive Technologies – i.e. new technologies that often make the existing technologies not relevant.
Facing difficulties in absorbing innovations was also true in renewable energies. Alvin and Heidi Toffler noted in their book “Revolutionary Wealth” – “The main question is thus whether we will overcome the impending energy disaster. It is depended largely on the results of the conflict between the produce profits from the existing energies and industry researchers who struggle for alternative breakthrough “.
Characterizing “innovation scouting”
A global benchmarking study published in December 2009 by Nerac, a US research firm, characterizes the status of “innovation scouting”. It indicates that to obtain information from external sources, most companies (76%) made use of competitive intelligence tools by a massive gathering from the Internet, participation in conferences, leveraging relationships in academic research and the use of networks of personal relationships. 70% of companies stated that the main objective is “early detection of new technologies”.
Serving the local renewable energy industry
In Israel, promoting research in renewable energies have to be addressed by the larger corporations already in these areas working in close partnership with government ministries that will establish research foundations, legislate relevant laws and issue a master plan for this purpose, when innovation scouting is one of the tools to monitor new ideas
Conclusion
It seems that more companies are moving towards proactive and systematic activities to obtain early information about innovations. Althought in most companies’ innovation scouting has not yet reached a high standard of quality, it deserves a close attention, especially in competitive fields were capturing innovation can create a significant edge.
*The writer is a Competitive Intelligence strategic consultant and a lecturer at the MBA program in the Ono Academic College on Competitive Intelligence.
avnerpro@netvision.net.il
I have attempted to generate Insight using Competitive Intelligence to enter the mind of Insurgent Leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan and India, to assist law enforcement agencies in their quest for Competitive Intelligence to outflank and outmaneuver Insurgency in Iraq, Afghanistan and India, thereby making “Emerging Markets” in Middle East and Africa and Asia more conducive to “Foreign Investment” and hence “Mitigating Risks of Globalization for International Businesses”.
Competitive Intelligence INSIGHT – Dealing with Insurgency in Iraq, Afghanistan and India.
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Low Intensity Conflict is always dynamic. Insurgents are aware that static defense has no part in insurgency action and that fixed defense has no place except momentarily when the insurgents lay an ambush.
Insurgents action reverses the normal practice of warfare as insurgents seek to avoid battle and tactically evade engagements where they are likely to suffer losses.
Hit and Run is the distinct principle of insurgent action. Dispersion is an essential condition of survival and success on the insurgents side as they never present a target and thus can only operate as minute particles of mercury that momentarily coagulate like globules of mercury to overwhelm some weakly guarded law enforcement objective.
Insurgents “principle of Concentration” is replaced by “fluidity of force”. Dispersion is also a necessity on the side of counter insurgency as there is no value in a narrow concentration of force against an elusive insurgent.
The success in Counter Insurgency in Iraq, Afghanistan and India will lie in being able to extend fine but closely woven net over the widest possible area. The more extensive the controlling net, the likely that the Counter Insurgency drive in Iraq, Afghanistan and India is likely to succeed.
Insurgents strategy is always to increasingly over stretch the physical and mental morale of the Special Forces. What insurgents do is that they try to keep the Special Forces in the dark, while the insurgents try to operate in the light of superior knowledge combined with reliable news about Special Forces disposition and moves.
Insurgency in Iraq, Afghanistan and India is waged by few insurgents with the support of the many ie sympathy of the local population. Insurgent leaders spend a great deal of time in organization, agitation and propaganda work than they do in fighting Special Forces.
For the most important job for an insurgent leader is to win local population over. An insurgent leader uses EPDC tactics:
1. Explain
2. Persuade
3. Discuss
4. Convince
If the political temperature is correct , then the insurgents however few in number will thrive and proliferate. It is the principle concern of all insurgent leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan and India to get the right political temperature and maintain it.
Insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan and India operating with the greatest speed from inaccessible bases which they change frequently strike at Special Forces in rapid succession at isolated garrisons, convoys trains. Insurgent leaders information is always timely and accurate as they have the support of the local population.
Insurgents leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan and India devote time for OCP:
1. Organization
2. Consolidation
3. Preservation
OCP of regional base areas that are situated in isolated and difficult terrain. Here Insurgent leaders train volunteers where they are indoctrinated and from there agitators and propagandists are dispersed individually and in groups to surrounding areas to enlist the support of the local population in Iraq, Afghanistan and India.
What Insurgent leaders are able to achieve is that around each insurgent base they are able to create a belt of sympathizers who are willing to supply food, recruits and information.
The pattern of the Insurgent leaders process in Iraq, Afghanistan and India is:
1. Conspiratorial
2. Clandestine
3. Methodical
4. Progressive
Next, the Insurgent leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan and India indulges in:
1. Acts of Sabotage
2. Terrorism
3. Elimination of Collaborationists and Reactionary elements.
Insurgent leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan and India then attack vulnerable military and police outposts and weak columns are ambushed.
Competitive Intelligence is the decisive factor in dealing with Counter Insurgency in Iraq, Afghanistan and India. Insurgent leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan and India, monitor Security Forces whereabouts, strength, the state of equipment, the supply chain and the morale of Security Forces.
Insurgents Intelligence nets are tightly organized and pervasive. In insurgent areas in Iraq, Afghanistan and India, any person without exception is considered an agent including old men, women, boys driving oxcarts and girls tending goats, sheep and cows, besides farm laborers, storekeepers, school teachers, priests etc.,
The local insurgent cadres put heat on everyone without regard. As a corollary, insurgents deny all information of themselves to Special Forces who are enveloped in an impenetrable fog.
The Special Forces stand on an lighted stage and from the darkness around them thousands of unseen eyes intently study Special Forces every move, every gesture.
www.corporaterisks.info
Advisor, Corporate Risks
riskmitigator@yahoo.com
Assistant Professor, MBA Competitive Intelligence & Corporate Warfare program
Internal Environment Analysis
Do we / competitors have a powerful strategy
What core competence do we / competitors have
How is our product strongly differentiated from that of our rivals
Are our competencies and capabilities well matched to industry key success factors
Do we / competitors have a strong brand name
What is the company’s reputation
How does our technology, technical skills compare to competitors
Do we have a cost advantage over rivals
What are our / competitors product innovation capabilities
What is our / competitors supply chain management capability
Where do we stand versus competitors with regard to customer service
How does our product quality compare to rivals
Do we / competitors have alliances or joint ventures with other organizations that provide access to valuable technology, markets or creates a synergy in our competencies
Are we / competitors serving additional customer groups or market segments
Are we / competitors partially / fully integrated
Is there a likely entry of potential new competitors in our market segments
How effective is the substitution effect in the industry
Is there a shift in buyer needs away from our products
Are there any adverse demographic changes that curtail demand for our product / services
Are there restrictive trade policies on behalf of foreign governments
Are there expensive new regulatory requirements
www.corporaterisks.info
Advisor, Corporate Risks
riskmitigator@yahoo.com
Assistant Professor, MBA Competitive Intelligence & Corporate Warfare program
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