TEAM Zarate Tarrani Notes From the Field

Competitive Intelligence Defined. Competitive intelligence is one of those terms that mean different things to different people, with many definitions based on misconceptions. One of the best definitions I've found is What Competitive Intelligence Is and Is Not.

Framework for Competitive Analysis is an MS Word document that provides a structured approach to CI, and Process to Define Intelligence Needs adds more structure to the art and science of competitive intelligence.

Mining Competitive Intelligence from Public Sources. By some estimates 90% of the information needed to perform an in-depth assessment of competitors is publicly available. What is required to obtain this information is knowing where to look. Also be aware that if you can so easily learn about your competitors they will probably learn much about your organization with the same ease.

Who Are You Assessing? Conducting competitive intelligence operations requires executive level commitment, funding and resources. You cannot [cost-effectively] watch everyone. The whitepaper titled Identifying Adversaries will help to identify the scope of your research.

Sources. The best starting point is Hoover's Handbook of American Business 2002, or if your scope is international, Hoover's Handbook of World Business 2002 is the place to begin. You will also want to bookmark Hoover's Online. One well-written article on competitive analysis is titled What Are Your Competitors Up To?. This article is aimed at recruiters, but the information is applicable to marketing analysts, members of benchmarking teams and product developers.

I urge corporate communications and legal departments to also be familiar with this material because there is latitude for implementing effective countermeasures. As a competitive intelligence specialist I know only too well that many companies make more information publicly available than is necessary. Look at it this way: your competitors are almost certainly expending money and resources to learn about you. Developing a business case for countermeasures may reveal a surprisingly large ROI.

Transformations. Information does not equal intelligence. It needs to be transformed into raw and processed intelligence (see Mike Tarrani's 28 February 2002 definitions of raw and processed intelligence in Postcards from the Revolution).

A document that addresses the information-to-intelligence transformation is Business Intelligence for the Finance Industry. Although this document is focused on the finance industry the concepts and approach can be used in any industry sector. Another source of valuable information and key indicators is a company's investment in information technology. The whitepaper titled Value Implications of IT Investments gives insights on how to interpret competitor information technology spending.

When competitive intelligence in turned inward it's called business intelligence. The same framework and processes used in competitive intelligence gathering and assessment can be used to evaluate your own competitive position. The whitepaper titled E-Commerce Internal Intelligence shows the value of business intelligence techniques when applied to e-commerce solutions, while Realtime Business Analysis provides a broader look at the value, factors and issues of internal intelligence. An interesting paper that looks inward is Agency Theory Online Analysis. This document is a case study that illustrates the value of web-based online evidence as research tactic for business intelligence.

Challenging Exercise. If you want to test your skills at analysis and developing intelligence from information read Information Technology for European Advancement. Place you findings within the context of European Union initiatives and develop conclusions. You may uncover interesting insights and trends.

Secrets Revealed. If ever you wanted to know who we (me, Linda and Kate) are, our backgrounds and professional interests, visit the TEAM Zarate-Tarrani Capabilities page. You'll also notice a name you may have seen mentioned here, Marcia Hopkins. I hope to entice her into posting here one of these days.

Process Artifacts. As soon as I complete pending work that has priority I'll return to my topic about processes. In the meantime I have some relevant documents to share that you'll find interesting: Experience Factory Model is a 96-page manual describing the PIE Experience Factory Model. This model is of interest to process analysts, knowledge management specialists and software engineering process group members. The model fosters continuous learning in a software engineering environment with emphasis on organizational process control and change.

Defining Software Processes is a PowerPoint presentation that provides an excellent comparison of the ETVX and IDEF0 models that I discussed in prior entries. Another presentation that covers the ETVX model in detail is titled Process Action Team Processes. In a future entry I'll be discussing process action teams in more detail, so this presentation will serve as an introduction to this powerful and proven model.

The final document, titled Business Process Innovation (Data Analysis) discusses an important aspect of process design and/or improvement.

If your interests are focused on software process improvement see my latest entry in Postcards from the Revolution.

News. My web page is completed and available for viewing. There is still much content to add, but none of the pages are under construction. They are in a state of evolution, and more content will be added in the coming week.

Technical Topics. I want to share three resources that build upon those I've posted in my past few entries:

• Knowledge Management Issues is a collection of three documents that address aspects of knowledge management. This topic (knowledge management) is directly related to business intelligence, and is indirectly related to competitive intelligence. The documents in the collection include knowledge management fundamentals, knowledge management in technical organizations, and expert systems.
• The Role of Competitive Intelligence in Mergers and Acquisitions, which covers the relationship between competitive intelligence and due diligence (MS Word format).
• Using Customized e-Learning, which is an MS Word document that discusses e-learning and how to tailor it to meet organizational objectives. E-learning is a knowledge management enabler.

My Role. If you've been reading this weblog or its sister, Postcards from the Revolution, you've probably noticed that I'm taking a more active role in developing and publishing content. Mike and I are in the process of developing a new web site that focuses on business and competitive intelligence, which will tie together my entries in the weblogs and broader material about those topics. Stay tuned.

Time and Again. My time is becoming precious, which means that I am only going to be making brief entries here and in Postcards from the Revolution for the next few days. However, I do want to continue adding content to augment the topic I started about processes, which will give more background information. I also have some interesting documents that address Oracle capacity and performance planning that will be of interest to DBAs and production support staff, as well as to software test professionals.

Process Documents. The first set of documents is a Zip archive that contains materials on balanced scorecards. This relates to processes by providing a structured means of measuring the important elements of business and IT processes. Balanced scorecards can be applied to a single business or technical process area, or rolled up into an enterprise level view of how well you are doing.

A document that will be helpful in the development of process improvement initiatives, which relate to both balanced scorecards and process design is the process improvement impact questionnaire (in MS Word format). The questions in this document can be tailored to your organization's goals and objectives, and is a solid foundation from which to proceed towards measurements or improvement initiatives.

Evolving Business Process Reengineering from Art to Engineering is a gem. This MS Word document covers processes in depth, and is a wealth of information about process analysis and design, and reengineering approaches. A companion document, Organizational Impact of IT-enabled BPR, contains case studies of IT-enabled business process reengineering initiatives. The key word is IT-enabled. I am a staunch advocate of business-led BPR initiatives in which IT plays a supporting role. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that fact that IT [in general] has a poor track record of managing projects or demonstrating an understanding of business imperatives. That isn't the case in all IT organizations, but is still the rule rather than the exception.

IT-Specific Topics. Two resources that are related to IT technical processes are:

1. Zip archive of ISO 9000, CMMI and software supportability documents.
2. Document in PDF format that describes a high availability model for SAP. The connection between this document and IT processes requires a slight stretch of the imagination, but the connection is there if you carefully read through the paper.

Oracle Capacity and Performance. If you are an Oracle DBA, or are involved in Oracle capacity and performance planning or conducting database stress testing you'll find the Oracle Capacity and Performance Methods document collection to be invaluable. This Zip archive contains documents and spreadsheets on: SQL performance, 3-Tier capacity and performance, the Ratio Modeling Technique and other performance and capacity planning techniques that are specific to Oracle databases.

As a performance and/or capacity analyst you already know that queuing modeling is a recurring activity. This MS Excel queuing analysis spreadsheet will make your job a little easier. If you have a Palm-based PDA you can put it to work with this queuing analysis application.

End Note. Kate Hartshorn is posting more frequently here and in Postcards from the Revolution. I, for one, appreciate the information that she is sharing and her insights into topics that are illuminating.

Laura Brown, author of Integration Models: Templates for Business Transformation, is now publishing a newsletter. Her inaugural issue covers a wide range of topics, all of which will be of interest to IT professionals. I also recommend a visit to Laura's web site, especially the pages devoted to integration models and data warehouses.

She is one of my favorite authors, and her book was among the top four that I read in 2001. You can read reviews Linda and I wrote on Amazon during June 2001 if you want more details about Integration Models: Templates for Business Transformation, or you can visit Ms. Brown's Books and Articles page for an in-depth look at what's between the covers.