This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Summary
Excellent analysis is the key to successful insights and/or intelligence and can provide high-value strategic decision support capability in contemporary enterprises. Intelligence about customers, competitors, potential partners, suppliers, and other influential stakeholders is a company’s first, and often only, line of offense/defense. Maintaining this capability into the future requires analysts and competitive intelligence practitioners to exploit every opportunity to provide their decision makers with analysis that is persuasive, relevant, timely, perceptive, and actionable. Analysts must provide their decision makers with the essential insight needed to preserve their organization’s competitiveness and provide early warnings of market changes.
Contemporary analysts are expected to offer direct and immediate support to resolve different types of queries, work more closely with their counterparts responsible for human and technical collection, package their analyses in a variety of new forms, and deliver them through whatever means are best suited to the recipient.
In fulfilling this mission for the future, competitive intelligence-driven organizations and members of the analytical community face many fresh challenges. Success will be determined, at least in part, by how well these individuals and functions manage their scarce resources, balance frequently conflicting demands, produce longer-term analysis, continue to develop both broad and deep analytic expertise, and forge new relationships with others both inside and outside their organizations. This is not the time for analysts to be resting on their laurels. New ways of working and critical issues are appearing at a far greater pace than in the past. Analysts need all the help they can get to rise to the challenge of tomorrow’s demands.