In business, you always need to know what your competitors are doing. To survive you must perform competitive intelligence activities and monitor the broader market for new developments that could affect your company, your products and brands, suppliers, and distributors. Tracking your competitors is the only way to make to make sure you are thwarting threats, taking advantage of opportunities, marketing effectively, and, ultimately, winning in the marketplace. By performing competitive intelligence, you will significantly increase your margins and profitability.
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Published by rwatstein July 12th, 2008
in blogs and corporations.
There are lots of organizations out there who are starting corporate blogs — and many of those blogs get a less-than-stellar reception from their potential audiences. Why does this happen? Why don’t people want to read a particular blog? Well, I’d suggest there are certain things people want to see in a corporate blog.
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Published by rwatstein June 21st, 2008
in innovation and corporations.
Innovation is proving to be a defining factor for successful corporations. Drawing from the magazine’s annual survey, the newly-launched S&P/BusinessWeek Global Innovation Index tracks the performance of 25 of the world’s most innovative public companies. Since 2 of our top 25 are privately held, AT&T and Samsung Electronics (Nos. 26 and 27) moved into the index.
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In the past, business intelligence (BI) simply meant software designed to enable organizations to understand their business. Today it has evolved to become a term describing how organizations use and analyze information to make decisions and manage performance. It has moved from an application used on a limited project basis to multiple applications that can be utilized not just at a departmental or company-wide level but across an organization’s entire business network. BI technology is now much easier to use. Gone are the slow and archaic systems. Today’s BI tools are sophisticated and user-friendly, enabling companies to improve the way they do business; supporting top business goals, attracting and retaining new customers and creating new products and services. So it is no wonder that business intelligence is the number one technology priority for CIOs, according to a survey released by Gartner in January this year.
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Published by rwatstein April 27th, 2008
in innovation and corporations.
North American and European executives say business strategy depends largely on innovation, yet corporate responsibility for innovation is highly fragmented, Accenture survey shows.Frequency of innovation, “speed to market” are key competitive challenges Business strategy is driven largely by innovation, but corporate responsibility for the innovation process is highly fragmented, according to findings of a survey published by Accenture. The survey of 601 senior executives in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada found that innovation is a top corporate priority, but it also indicates that more senior-level accountability, greater CEO involvement and improved speed-to-market execution can help companies deliver on their promise of innovation and boost their competitiveness.
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A competitive intelligence head once noted that, “Competitive Intelligence is like oxygen. You have to have it, but the only time you realize you need it is when it is in short supply.” In today’s marketing space, most companies need competitive intelligence to effectively deal with a turbulent business environment, it is when the key insights are lacking that people begin to realize how critical competitive intelligence is in helping with:
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Oral history attempts to extract business value from the recollections of an organization’s key leaders and top performers, and it is a potentially useful resource for business intelligence.One of the key considerations we use to determine whether something can be classified as business intelligence (BI) is whether it is useful in terms of making decisions. If we can put information to use in choosing courses of action, clearly it is business intelligence. Usually we look for business intelligence by analyzing structured data in our data warehouses and data marts, or we use data mining software and neural nets to look for hidden patterns in large volumes of data. The goal: to uncover actionable information and/or insights about our business. Even so, there is another potentially useful resource for business intelligence that we have not yet looked at in any rigorous way: the oral history of our enterprises.
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Published by rwatstein March 3rd, 2008
in innovation and corporations.
Advances in business come from asking questions. Yet as we age, we lose the curiosity of youth and ask fewer questions. Consultant Corinne Miller recommends developing QuestionBanks, organized collections of thought-provoking questions that inspire innovative solutions when you face challenges. In a ChangeThis manifesto, she advises such things as “Identifying”: The source for questions already exist around us, in books, white papers, journals, brochures, competitive intelligence, market research and technical documents. Consider the various outside experts, industry leaders, competitors, suppliers, customers, and even family members who already ask questions about your workplace. “With a little imagination, the sources for questions are nearly endless,” she says.
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Widespread use of business intelligence applications and tools has been the rallying cry of BI vendors for more than a decade, and yet we’re nowhere close to making that a reality. On average, only 25% of workers use BI, according to a survey of 513 employees that I did with Intelligent Enterprise for my book, Successful Business Intelligence. The tools themselves are partially to blame for lackluster adoption, along with company cultures that encourage gut-feel decision making, allow information hoarding, or let IT departments keep data locked away. Blame also rests with a failure to convey the value of BI to business execs, some of whom are confused about how it differs from the ERP system reports and manual spreadsheets they use now.
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Published by rwatstein February 25th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
More and more companies are learning the hard way that business intelligence (BI) business requirements are a different breed of cat. After paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees for generic BI requirements, or after spending months and months generating traditional report requirements and functional specifications, major companies in many different industries have discovered that these approaches suffer from three primary deficiencies: 1) They don’t provide the basis for a compelling business case that business leaders buy into – one that clearly articulates how business intelligence will be used within specific business processes to improve business performance.
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Published by rwatstein February 18th, 2008
in Uncategorized, innovation and corporations.
We canvassed the experts, analyzed the products, and crunched the numbers. From visionary upstarts to storied stalwarts, here are companies that dazzle with new ideas — and prove beyond a doubt how business is a force for change. We call them the Fast 50.
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Published by rwatstein February 9th, 2008
in innovation and corporations.
Most CEOs are challenging their marketing leaders to deliver measurable performance in the marketplace at an accelerated pace, both in terms of demand-generation and traditional brand building. Most Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) understand that innovation is the ultimate driver of the kind of growth the CEO is demanding. The problem is that innovation traditionally takes time — often longer to show results than the two-year tenure of today’s average CMO. The solution is to move quickly to build innovation into your nearer term (6-12 months) efforts and resources while also building disruptive innovation over the medium term (12-24 months). This will put innovation on a faster, accelerated path, and do so within your current direction and resources. However, it does require a different approach and scope of innovation, as well as a challenge to your team and external resources.
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Published by rwatstein February 9th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
“Dynamic” is one of those words that can have both a positive and negative connotation. Definition number one: powerful, energetic, forceful. You have a dynamic boss, she has a dynamic personality, they work in a dynamic organization. Definition number two: marked by continuous activity or change. We live in a dynamic economy, they have a dynamic mortgage payment, your paycheck is dynamic. Is dynamic a good thing or a bad thing? What does it mean to create a powerful, energetic, forceful BI team that will grow and change as the business changes?
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To formulate an effective corporate strategy, it’s essential to understand two basic questions: What is your company doing, and what are your competitors doing? You may have a handle on what’s going on under your own roof, but developing a detailed picture of your competitors’ activities usually requires some sleuthing. Competitive intelligence is a field of strategic research that specializes in the collection and analysis of information about rival firms. Don’t worry: This doesn’t require Dumpster diving or shady tricks. Instead, competitive intelligence is about adhering to a strict ethical code by collecting bits of information that are available either in the public domain or from other players in the marketplace. The goal is to amass enough data to make meaningful comparisons between your firm and your competitors — and to make better-informed strategic decisions as a result. Here’s how to get started.
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Published by rwatstein February 5th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
Over the past decade, more and more companies have adopted the balanced scorecard (BSC) as a key framework for managing their businesses. In addition to being a strong tool for communication of key strategies, the BSC provides clear linkages between strategies, the business processes by which the strategies are executed, and the key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure business performance. From a performance management perspective, the BSC provides the baseline for performance measurement; and, according to industry research, many companies who adopt the BSC are satisfied with the method and plan to continue its use. And whether you call it enterprise performance management, business performance management, or corporate performance management, there is no denying that the ability to measure performance from financial, customer, operational, and learning perspectives is valuable
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Published by rwatstein January 26th, 2008
in innovation and corporations.
As we launch a new year one truth is certain: an optimal solution for 2007 is not likely to meet the challenges of 2008 and 2009. Business owners and executives no longer can afford to rest upon prior laurels, even for a moment. To paraphrase an old line from the academicians, in today´s 24/7 high-tech world of commerce the catch phrase is “innovate or perish.”
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Social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, have been around for less than five years, but they are already very much part of the Web 2.0 revolution taking place right now. Not only are they changing the way people socialize, they are also making traditional businesses sit up and take notice. It is estimated that about 194 million people around the world are managing at least one profile on a social networking site. And with 800 million internet users still not registered with such sites, the potential for growth is overwhelming.
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Published by rwatstein January 20th, 2008
in innovation and corporations.
Mature companies understand that to compete today they need to innovate. But finding sources of innovation while still paying attention to the current business can be a struggle. The good news, says Harvard Business School professor Lynda M. Applegate, is that one of the forces that threatens established companies can also be a source of salvation: disruptive change. Applegate should know. Her current research and teaching focus on the challenges of building new ventures and leading radical business innovation in the face of significant market, technological, and regulatory turbulence. She also teaches courses on innovation and building new ventures to seasoned executives in the School’s Executive Education Program.
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Hoover’s announced the latest edition of “The Hoover’s Index,” a free, proprietary monthly index of the leading public and private companies, non-profits, and associations which represent the brand leaders, up-and-comers and “buzz” creators driving the U.S. and international economies. Based on a proprietary algorithm that takes into account the search trends of business professionals, including both organic and internal searches on Hoover’s site, as well as business searches conducted via major search engines, The Hoover’s Index company list is a valuable resource for business executives, financial analysts, mutual fund managers and investment advisors in gauging which companies are capturing the interest of the global business community.
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Published by rwatstein January 12th, 2008
in corporations and business intelligence.
Six Sigma business intelligence (BI) is a customer-focused, measurement-based approach to improving business intelligence. Six Sigma refers to a better and smarter way of managing business. Six Sigma means putting the customer first and striving for a product that is near perfection. Six Sigma principles have been used in the business world for years and have produced significant and frequently amazing results. In the late 1990s, Jack Welch at GE demonstrated just how successful Six Sigma can be. From 1996 to 1998, GE went from costs of $200 million and returns of $150 million to costs of $400 million and returns of more than $1 billion. Jack Welch was a Six Sigma convert who led his company in changing the way they did business. From his unique position, he transformed his company by focusing on customer needs and working smarter using Six Sigma principles and processes. Despite continued success in the business arena, Six Sigma principles and methods have not been freely translated over into information technology. Business intelligence is an excellent place to begin and the time is now.
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Kurt Neubauer doesn’t wear disguises or sift through a company’s trash hunting for secret information. But he is involved in corporate espionage. Rather than calling himself a spy, however, Neubauer’s job title is competitive intelligence analyst. Everything he does is legal and ethical, he says, and his services increasingly are sought by mid-size and large firms that spend an estimated $ 1 billion a year for inside dope, a figure predicted to grow tenfold by 2012.
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A new study shows businesses continue to have headaches in reducing risks. The KPMG study of 544 global executives shows that many companies want to be able to be able to manage their performance, but only 20 percent are able to make reliable forecasts. Yes, it’s increasingly difficult to stay on top of marketplace challenges and to invest in trends to get the most return on your investments. That’s why the Competitive Intelligence (CI) process is sweeping the planet. CI enables a company to reduce risks and accelerate profits.
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Published by rwatstein December 22nd, 2007
in web 2.0 and corporations.
There is a new wave of communication tools, including blogs, wikis, and group messaging software (which, collectively, are called “Enterprise 2.0″ within the enterprise and “Web 2.0″ elsewhere) that allow for more spontaneous, knowledge-based collaboration. These new tools may well supplant other communication and knowledge management systems with their superior ability to capture tacit knowledge, best practices, and relevant experiences from throughout a company and make them readily available to more users. Only time will tell.
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Published by rwatstein December 22nd, 2007
in social networking and corporations.
Companies are learning a thing or two from popular Internet social networking sites like Facebook and Friendster. In fact, some companies are trying to create their own, according to the head of a local software company. Companies are now trying to put social networking functions around their own internal applications, said Steve Nathan, chief executive of Exist Global, which provides services to software start-ups and enterprise customers. The primary goal, according to Nathan, is collaboration across the entire workforce.
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Published by rwatstein December 22nd, 2007
in social networking and corporations.
Many companies are thinking about whether they can take advantage of social networking technology but analysts at Gartner are warning corporates against getting caught up in all the Facebook-led Web 2.0 hype. Issues that businesses need to consider before investing developing internal social networking tools include protecting personal intellectual property and people’s preference for using existing non-professional external networks such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace.
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In Forrester’s new study, “The Seven Tenets Of The Information Workplace,” it identifies several Web 2.0 technologies that companies should adopt for stronger information connections: RSS, blogs, rich Internet applications (RIAs), tagging, wikis, and virtual worlds. “Some companies have adopted them more heavily than others,” Erica Driver, a Forrester analyst who contributed to the report, told CIO.com. However, she says a lot of CIOs might play it safe. “As they try to develop information workplace strategies, they want to get as much Web 2.0 as they can from incumbent vendors.” Instead, they should look for innovation from the younger set. [via CIO.com]
The first of the seven tenets:
1. Work should be contextual
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Published by rwatstein December 9th, 2007
in corporations and technology.
Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business. Through our (McKinsey) work and research , we have identified eight technology-enabled trends that will help shape businesses and the economy in coming years. These trends fall within three broad areas of business activity: managing relationships, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways.
(free registration required)
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Published by rwatstein December 9th, 2007
in web 2.0, corporations and consumers.
Companies can no longer sweep dirt under the carpet and hope no one notices. Like it or not, consumers are going to find out–and they’re going to talk. Marketers used to be able to control what consumers knew about their companies, but the Web 2.0 era has opened up a new realm of product experts. Consequently, consumers have turned to one another for the truth — or at least, a version of the truth they perceive to be less biased.
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Published by rwatstein December 9th, 2007
in corporations and gaming.
Like all companies invested in the volatile but lucrative videogame industry, Vivendi went looking for a hero. The French conglomerate, which owns a mixed bag of businesses, from Moroccan phone services to Universal Music Group, sought to add to its small but successful gaming division that includes Blizzard Entertainment’s 9.3-million subscriber “World of Warcraft.”
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Published by rwatstein November 20th, 2007
in corporations and digital.
It seems like the whole world is creating, tagging, and delivering content these days. Once the domain of trained professionals, content is now everybody’s business. In many ways, the general public leads the publishing industry in its comfort with, and usage of, digital content tools—from blogs to podcasts to wikis. However, this does not make these consumer-only tools. Those of us in the industry well know we need to tap into the iterative process that characterizes Web 2.0—which means we need to play on the same field, using many of the same toys and tactics. For us at EContent, that can blur the lines between professional and consumer, but in a way it simply reflects the digital content continuum, with a fluid nature that makes content difficult to control, yet imbues it with limitless possibilities.
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Published by rwatstein November 12th, 2007
in corporations and leadership.
The secret to leadership may not boil down to that vision thing. It may not be some exceptional ability to inspire others, nor the courage to zig when all signs point to zag. Fresh research by top leadership gurus suggest that if great leaders have something in common, it could be this: a knack for escaping lapses of bad judgment. Or, at least the luck to do so. It may not even require an all-star’s batting average in judgment. From Abraham Lincoln, our greatest leaders often have inconsistent judgment but, over long careers, find a way to be on the right side a few times when judgment is critical.
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Published by rwatstein November 3rd, 2007
in virtual worlds and corporations.
Virtual team challenge for high schools helps student learn about careers in accounting and consulting in an effort to help Deloitte fill its talent pipeline in the years to come. Deloitte & Touche USA LLP launched Virtual Team Challenge for High Schools (VTCHS) — Event!, a new virtual reality version of its online business simulation and classroom curriculum competition for pre-college students.
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It’s the Golden Rule of business: it’s not so much what you know, but also who you know. But do you know them on LinkedIn? Friendster? Facebook? MySpace? All of them? Networking is an integral part of doing business, but online networking has changed the rules. Instead of spending (wasting?) hours shmoozing in smoke-filled lounges and cocktail parties, networking is as simple as a search and click to “link” with people.
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