GovConWire – Beth Goode, director of Competitive Intelligence and Price-To-Win with SOS International (SOSi), recently spoke with ArchIntel regarding how to find talent and construct a Competitive Intelligence team within a company, as well as how to gather and synthesize data to provide actionable insights to decision makers and stakeholders. Goode also touched on emerging technologies and tools she has used to organize data and conduct analysis.
“The Competitive Intelligence field requires a tremendous amount of trust –in the data you collect, the analysis you provide, and the reputation you’ve built. C-suite level executives & other stakeholders do not need to be overwhelmed with a surplus of industry data points.
What they really need is a clear, detailed picture of the competitive landscape that is honest and transparent. Every assessment and recommendation I provide puts my reputation on the line. It is a lot of pressure, but at the end of the day a strong Competitive Intelligence group is a balance of art and science, responsible for helping to inform the company’s strategy and drive decision making.”
ArchIntel: What are some of the essential characteristics of a Competitive Intelligence workforce?
“Intellectual curiosity is essential; I can’t emphasize that enough. A person that’s going to be effective within Competitive Intelligence has to constantly question and seek information. If they see something new, their first instinct should be to go research and gain a baseline understanding of the topic.
The second skill that is absolutely key is understanding how to do analysis. People tend to be great researchers because we grew up in the Google age. We all know how to hop online and type in a search engine, but it requires critical thinking to overcome assumptions, read between the lines, and collect a variety of rich data points to draw valid conclusions.
To establish ground truth, you must validate the points you’ve collected. To zero in on the truth, I think of it like GPS, using multiple facts to triangulate my position. Once I have multiple points validating that my data is correct and usable, I begin to look at it from a higher vantage point to extract the trends that inform my findings and recommendations.
This definitely takes quite a bit of practice and a developed understanding how to break things down, put them back together, and cut through the noise to find the information you need.
The third skill set is having the ability to communicate. If you are successful in the first two skills, but don’t know how to communicate your analysis to your stakeholders, then your work can go unnoticed.
Within competitive analysis, you’re trying to provide leaders and stakeholders with information so they can make more informed decisions. If I’m unable to communicate the ‘what and why’ from the data that I’m finding, it’s not valuable.”
ArchIntel: What challenges do you face within Competitive Intelligence?
Click here to read the full interview.
