Archives for May 2015

7 tasks of a Competitive Intelligence analyst

May 27, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

1. Key intelligence topic (KIT) revision and knowledge: the analyst must have a deep knowledge about KITs which are his responsibility. Knowing the main players, trends, gurus… and be able to discern between relevant and trivial information for the company. Additionally, from time to time the analyst must review the adequacy of these KITs and how are these defined in each time adjusting to the changeable situation of his company.

2. Information Sources review: the review of information sources is a task to perform from time to time but of a great importance. Access to information and the available number of information sources has grown and continues increasing in a way that the analyst must keep an eye on the appearance of those new sources which can provide information of interest. It is important to review the sources every time there are changes in the KITs.

3. Sources filtering: after reviewing sources the analyst should add new interesting sources and eliminate those which are not. But the level of information available makes that, besides being strict with the sources, the analyst must filter the information that receives from each of them (specially from the most active) to limit the received amount and not be overwhelmed.

4. Information search: previous tasks are performed with some regularity, but the search of information of interest is part of the analyst’s everyday life. Reviewing the received information and selecting that significant is a time consuming task but that is the key to his job.

5. Sharing information: in some cases it happens that the information received is of interest, bur is outside the KITs under his responsibility. In these cases, the analyst must identify another analyst who sends and shares the information. He`s going to analyze and disseminate the information.

6. Analysis and putting in value of his knowledge: after detecting the information of interest, the analyst must analyze why is that information interesting and put it in the context of the company to ease the interpretation. In this step the analyst can enrich the information putting it into context.

7. Dissemination: the last step of his work, once the information of interest has already been analyzed and valued, is the dissemination. The final objective of the CI is to generate an appropriate context for decision-making and the analyst has to make knowledge reach the people who have to make decision.

If you want to train as a CI Analyst, or have doubts about how to launch a CI Unit, you can contact us for help. Also, you can try free professional software like INNGUMA requesting a demo.

11 keys to successfully launch a Competitive Intelligence Unit

May 19, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

1. Choose the best moment, look for the opportunity and look for a strong Management support. The project must have a unique responsible and it would be interesting that this person could report the progress directly to the Management board.

2. Get information about prior experiences and know why they failed.

3. Analyze other internal processes of the company where the need of information is frequent: new product development, strategic plans, annual management plans, technological roadmaps, diversification to new business models, emerging technologies valuation, competitor research, market research, etc. From this analysis you will know what Key intelligence topics (KIT) are more continuous and transversal and what are discontinuous and departmental.

4. Select the KITs and align them with the strategy. It is better to start small and go spreading the Intelligence slowly.

5. Select the human resources devoted to the TS/CI and define the time they will have. Choosing the correct person is the most important. It is usually advisable to define different roles and responsibilities in the CI system.

6. Write down your software needs and interact with different suppliers. Benchmark the tools and choose the one that best suits your needs.

7. Train yourselves together and begin monitoring information sources with the project team (competitors, customers, technologies, markets, standards, etc.). The software provider can help you in this particular point because this type of company usually has a wide range of interesting information sources.

8. Establish the information dissemination strategies within the organization. Design the information categories, newsletters, people who are going to receive them, give access and train the readers, etc. It is important by now to have sold the project to the whole organization.

9. Establish the process indicators to monitor the consumed resources by the project. Control and review them with the Management board.

10. You must stand over the analysts that work in the content curation and make monitoring meetings. Analysts must know very clear what the goals you are demanding are.

11. It is important to establish a review period of the KIT and have direct contact with the committees/meetings where the need for information is strategic and generates a lot of value to the organization.

If you have doubts about how to launch your CI Unit and need advice, you can contact us. Therefore, you can try a professional tool like INNGUMA for free requesting a demo.

Competitive Intelligence in IK4-Ideko Technology Centre

May 6, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

The Basque Government is finalizing a decree to regulate the Basque Science, Technology and Research Network (RVCTI) establishing new criteria to be met by each of the agents that make up the network to renew their accreditation. Not passing the filter of the reaccreditation means for the entity not being part of the RVCTI. And therefore could not qualify for direct funds with which the Basque Government finances its activity.

One of the requirements that this decree collects is the forced certification on the UNE 166.002:2014 R&D Management standard or equivalent. This standard published its third version in the 2014 summer. The standard has been revised in order to be updated and to carry out this process the requirements defined in the European Technical Specification CEN / TS 16555-1:2013 Management System Innovation were taken into account.

One of the specificities of the rule is that a RVCTI agent’s Innovation Management System should include a process of Technological Surveillance and Competitive Intelligence (TS/CI).

In this case IK4-Ideko is preparing for the future certification and for more than two years has a Technological Surveillance and Competitive Intelligence system that allows them to study and regularly analyze their environment, to identify current and future challenges. The objective and policies of the TS/CI system are established and areas of interest of the system are identified (market, technical, political, economic and social). Also they have the means to ensure the availability of resources and necessary indicators to permit implementation and monitoring process. Finally, the process has established a review of the necessary actions to achieve planned results and continuous improvement. To monitor the above aspects IK4-Ideko has designed a process map that displays the main TS/IC system elements, the interrelationships between the areas, the required resources for each area, the sequence and interaction of the activities and appropriate indicators for monitoring, measurement and analysis process. One of the facilitating aspects when designing and implementing the TS/CI system in IK4-Ideko was the management commitment and support in launching this new process by ensuring the availability of resources and using the system products and results in decision-making.

The TS/CI system provides different results and outputs to the organization and its needs and identified areas of concern, these products are divided into:

Low-level analysis products: repository website, categories, news, standards, scientific papers, patents, catalogs, videos, image galleries, subscriptions, R&D aid programs, etc.
Mid-level analysis products: specific newsletters, state of the art in technologies, competitors research, fair reports, conference reports, market studies, bibliographic studies, patentability, etc.
High-level analysis products: intelligence reports (quarterly and annual), reports about the competitive environment, technology roadmaps, reports of exploitation and seeking new opportunities, etc.

This generated information provides many benefits to IK4-Ideko, some are:

Anticipate, detect changes in regulations, laws, new technologies, new processes-systems, new markets, new competitors.
Reduce risk, detect threats, patents, products, regulations, alliances or new investment and barriers to access to technology and/or markets.
Progress, identify gaps between our technologies and/or products and the needs of clients and between our capabilities and those of other competitors, trying to minimize the weaknesses identified.
Innovate, promote new ideas and new solutions as well as new R&D.
Cooperate, meet new partners, experts, suppliers, technology partners, etc.

Another action arising from acquired knowledge by IK4-Ideko in the field of the TS/CI is to apply it directly in R&D both in local and European level. To do this, IK4-Ideko has developed a method (EXPLOITT®) to define, study and evaluate a exploitation plan of emerging technologies in the areas of R&D. The method meets the main steps and tools for incorporating innovation in collaborative R&D projects, defining an exploitation and business plan based on the study and evaluation. One of the fundamental tools of the method is the TS/CI. In the specific case of the application of the TS/CI in R&D, the activity will support the project by interacting with technology assessment module (frame technologies, market volumes …) and the business model module (prices, competitors, shareholders, stakeholders …). Additional activity may focus on identifying business opportunities and/or threats, including intellectual property rights, scientific publications, new standards and other technological and scientific sources.

If you want to integrate the TS/CI in your Company´s Innovation Management Process and need advice, you can contact us. Therefore, you can try professional software like INNGUMA for free requesting a demo.

Subscribe to the newsletter

WEB

CONTACT

LOCALIZATION

SOCIAL MEDIA