Competitive Intelligence Excellence: Use of Vendors and Resources

STUDY OVERVIEW

The Competitive Intelligence function provides important insights for organizations in competitive markets where change is constant. CI leaders often face a balancing act between limited resources and the need to gather information from a variety of sources - some easily accessed, some not. This situation pushes many CI leaders to rely on support from vendors for some information-gathering activities.

Best Practices, LLC conducted this study to present staffing and budget benchmarks for the CI function as well as an overview of how organizations are utilizing vendors. In particular, this study identifies what core CI activities organizations use vendors for and where vendors provide the greatest value. The study also reviews what characteristics/skills are the best match for CI employees. This research provides health care industry and CI leaders with metrics and insights they can use to increase the value of their function and generate greater influence within the corporation.


KEY TOPICS

• Budget & FTE Levels
• Uses of Third Party Vendors
• Top 5 CI Employee Skills

• Use of vendors in CI activities
• Leadership of war gaming/ scenario planning
• Use of vendors in interviewing
• Maximizing vendor value for CI activities
• Total number of FTE in CI group
• Estimated budget for CI group (in $US)
• Budget allocated for key CI activities
• Top 5 competencies for delivering maximum value CI performance
• Effective metrics in evaluating the performance of CI personnel

• Uses of Vendors:
  • CI activities that most often involve vendors are market/industry audits, war gaming, and competitor sales force profiling. Vendors may conduct these on their own or in collaboration with internal CI staff.
  • CI activities that least often involve vendors are SWOT analysis, competitor company profiling, and early warning.

• Structure of CI Function: Only 18% of the benchmark participants represent centralized, dedicated CI groups serving the entire company under or administration or budget. Others are decentralized through embedding in another line function (44%) or through alignment with a specific business unit, brand, or region. ny innovative uses of social media for CI.

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