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1 – 10 of 25A fully dedicated intelligence support function for senior management is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Companies can enhance their intelligence capabilities by using the…
Abstract
A fully dedicated intelligence support function for senior management is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Companies can enhance their intelligence capabilities by using the government model as a rough blueprint to structure such a program.
The purpose of this paper is to present leaders with a tool – war gaming – for effectively and efficiently stress‐testing their plans and strategies in a changing world under…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present leaders with a tool – war gaming – for effectively and efficiently stress‐testing their plans and strategies in a changing world under competitive pressures.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses case studies and anecdotal experience accumulated over 25 years.
Findings
War games reveal three basic myths regarding strategy: Everyone knows what strategy is intuitively. Improving execution is the essence of strategy. Everyone shares the leaders' enthusiasm and perceptions regarding the firm's strategic direction. Structuring war games correctly solves all three misconceptions.
Practical implications
Leaders looking for effective tools to test their ideas before committing resources to them will find war games exceedingly easy to use and very quick on results. This paper provides four quick “rules” on doing it right.
Originality/value
War games – long practiced by the military – have been successfully adapted for business use. Adopting the methodology to commercial environment offers wealth of opportunities for leaders to improve strategy.
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The purpose of the paper is to point out how little competitors matter for companies' long‐term success, how little support executives receive with intelligence that does matter…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to point out how little competitors matter for companies' long‐term success, how little support executives receive with intelligence that does matter, and to offer a different solution.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses numerous examples of competitive failures and success that point out the limits of competitors' impact on a company's performance. It covers the theory of strategic positioning and industry change drivers and provides a practical definition of strategic intelligence.
Findings
Competitors do not matter to executives; “competitive intelligence” has been misinterpreted as competitor‐watching and has therefore had no real value to executives, and companies leave their executives vulnerable to disastrous blindsiding.
Practical implications
Companies should and could markedly improve their intelligence support of top executives, but need to rethink their whole approach to competitive intelligence. Companies can also significantly improve the way they monitor the competitive environment by redirecting their efforts.
Originality/value
Executives are short changed by their organizations' own processes of closely watching competitors. For the first time, this paper exposes the myth that competitive intelligence – as practised by more than 90 percent of the Fortune 500 – has value for executives and offers a unique approach to improving companies' strategic intelligence capability.
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Management blindspots kill companies, even if management is smart and lucky. This paper is a case study of a market leader whose management failed to heed a strategic threat and…
Abstract
Purpose
Management blindspots kill companies, even if management is smart and lucky. This paper is a case study of a market leader whose management failed to heed a strategic threat and choose a new strategic direction until it was too late. This piece suggests a conceptual approach to creating a strategic early warning process that may be capable of overcoming top executives' blinders.
Design/methodology/approach
The method of research is a detailed case study, combined with a conceptual framework addressing issues of board involvement, managerial span of control and confronting change.
Findings
Traditional mechanisms aimed at early warning fail to address blindspots regarding deep strategic threats to the organization's survival. Strategic fissures in the basic business model can be ignored for a while, and delaying tactics such as diversification can hold off the collapse of the model for years, but eventually, it will kill the organization. Companies need to re‐think their approach to early warning.
Practical implications
Replace traditional early warning processes with a more powerful early warning tool involving selected board members, an early warning team, and a process initiated at a threshold. That may be the only way to overcome top executives' denial mechanisms.
Social implications
Boards should be careful not to interfere with management, but also not to allow “blinders” to kill the organization. Boards can take a more positive and forceful role in debating early warning signs.
Originality/value
Management blindspots in addressing serious strategic threats to a company's business model are a major cause of failure. This paper suggests a mechanism to fighting management blindspots, calling for the first time on Boards to get “down and dirty” with middle management and top executives in a unique way aimed at creating a powerful strategic early warning process.
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Paul L. Dishman and Jonathan L. Calof
The paper seeks to explore competitive intelligence as a complex business construct and as a precedent for marketing strategy formulation.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to explore competitive intelligence as a complex business construct and as a precedent for marketing strategy formulation.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 1,025 executives were surveyed about their companies' usage of competitive intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination as well as their perception concerning certain organizational characteristics.
Findings
This research develops and tests intelligence as a precedent to marketing strategy formulation, revealing multiple phases and contributing aspects within the process. It also discovers that the practice of competitive intelligence, while strong in the area of information collection, is weak from a process and analytical perspective.
Research limitations/implications
While the sample was indeed a census of Canadian technology firms, care must be taken in generalizing the study beyond this industry, and certainly beyond the Canadian borders. Also, the questionnaire used only dichotomous variables (yes/no answers), which limited the testing that could be done.
Practical implications
Using these results, competitive intelligence departments and professionals can improve efficacy within their approach and execution strategies.
Originality/value
The contribution of this paper is two‐fold. It reveals many of the “state‐of‐the‐art” levels of practice within current competitive intelligence efforts, and it proposes a model of the intelligence process.
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