- The Competitive Intelligence is expensive: Obviously, Competitive Intelligence requires resources (both financial and human), but the tools today have advanced enough to ensure that this resource consumption is content and appropriate to the scale of the Competitive Intelligence. There are tools like INNGUMA that suit the needs of each customer and reduce costs drastically and even, free tools exist. Human resources, on the other hand, must be sized to the information needs, not being too ambitious.
- CI provides no new information: It is very typical to meet people who claim to know everything that happens around their company, despite not having any systematic process of gathering information. “I usually found out that news out there” is usually a recurring phrase. We will not discuss that information on the competitive environment can be found through various means (including the “word of mouth”), but systematizing this task allows going much further and ensures that nothing escapes us.
- The CI is not exploitable: It is often thought that Competitive Intelligence ends when the information has reached the recipient and has made a decision. Nothing could be further from the truth; Competitive Intelligence is an important input for other activities involved in innovation management (roadmapping, idea generation processes, technology transfer, realization of state of the art, etc.) or strategic management (strategic plans, management plans, business plans, market and product plans) where provides relevant information and facilitates the achievement of results.
- ROI (Return on Investment) of CI can’t be measured: Measuring the ROI of the CI in economic terms is difficult, but not impossible. We must find the points where the greatest economic returns can be achieved. For example, activities such as tenders or funding programs monitoring may return direct economic results from Competitive Intelligence activity. The intangible benefits must not be forgotten, as we discussed in this article.
- Competitive Intelligence involves espionage: As you can see in our definition of Competitive Intelligence, the word “ethical” is included at the beginning. By this, we banish any doubt about the relationship between CI and espionage. Competitive Intelligence DOES NOT contemplate espionage.
- Competitive Intelligence is only for big companies: As mentioned above, CI must be sized to the needs and resources of each organization, so any company, however small, can perform the activity according to its possibilities.
As you can see, there are several myths that should be removed because they do not conform to reality. If you need help to launch your CI system, contact us and we will be glad to help you. Also, you can try a free professional software as INNGUMA requesting a demo.
