Five questions on your Competitive Intelligence

One good thing about being a “recovering” lawyer is that it I still access the latest trends and developments in the legal field. It’s part of our commitment to T-Shaped learning and it’s why Julie and I really enjoy working together, exploring and adapting ideas and trends from across all sectors.

This month’s issue of  the Canadian Bar Association’s magazine “The National” has an article on a trend I have heard little about before, how law firms are using competitive intelligence to grow their business. CI helps determine a clients’ needs by researching and analyzing data on emerging industries, prospective clients and their market environments. This helps clients, but also helps the law firm figure out where to invest its own business development efforts. It also adds a financial lens on existing and potential clients with a view to understanding “who are the ones that are keeping the lights on.” The use of CI in this context is primarily to build business.

But it got me wondering how this function relates to the foundation and corporate philanthropy work we do.  A  few things jumped out:

First,  that is pretty much exactly what we do with our clients. If they are already working in an area/issue and want to expand or change their program, we help them figure out what is going on in that area and identify some emerging trends and opportunities for them. Often, especially with our corporate clients, this work is not part of their core competency, so we will do a more extensive process that shows potential areas for them, with input from internal stakeholders such as the senior manager team and employees, and assessing how poential opportunities can best be aligned to their core business.

Secondly, it reminded me that even if the concept is a little counter-intuitive in the not-for-profit context, it can still be applied in intelligent ways. For example, when I was leading the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation we provided an outstanding amount of human and finanacial  support to women’s shelters across the country. But the biggest question we came bumping up against was “Why do women end up in a shelter and how do we stop this?’ As we explored this further, it became clear that activities at the prevention end of the continuum were a critical lever. So we identified a program called “The 4th R” (reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmatic, relationships) that seemed to be unlocking some of the “why” and”how“.  We were tempted to fund it but not before we put it through the same R and D process that a new service or product would be put through. The R and D team brought in a framework against which to test this idea. It asked all the critical components of the idea, what else was offered in the “marketplace” of youth violence prevention programs, what distinguished this program from others, and what success would look like. And most importantly, why invest in this program versus supporting and scaling up another that was already at work? That rigorous review was helpful in making an objective analysis to make sure the program was not duplicating other efforts or missing other more relevant opportunities. The exercise we went through is remarkably similar to the series of questions captured in this interesting blog by Hawes Consulting, “Answering the 5 difficult competitive intelligence questions”:

Third, it reminded me that we often see philanthropic strategies that work on a ‘fire, aim, ready” basis. A new idea gets jumped on very quickly without a lot of the upfront work that needs to go into the strategic questions, especially in this viral marketing environment.  This poses the danger of being both uncompetitive and unintelligent in terms of the idea and the program.  And most importantly, it misses the opportunity to do some really intelligent intelligence gathering about an issue before moving on it. At best, it is a charitable impulse (nothing wrong with that, but I am skeptical that lots of charitable activity in and of itself is a sustainable solution in the long run). At worse, it loses the opportunity to actually change the underlying circumstances or conditions that need to be changed to create long term solutions. So what are the 5 questions in determining a funder’s competitive intelligence?  These are adapted from the blog referred to above:

A. What does competitive intelligence mean in your context? What particular insights or strengths do you offer? This is the critical question. For corporate clients, we start by understanding their corporate environment, marketplace, customers and clients, and their employee passions.  That helps to find the “sweet spot” where their philanthropic interests can be aligned with core business, ensuring there will be synergy between the two.

B. Do you have a better idea about how to change or improve or make a significant contribution differently from what’s happening now? This is hopefully why thoughtful funders get into the game, to generate momentum and explore solutions on an issue.

C. How sure are you about the issue and your proposed approach? This is the point at which we take the idea on the road for market testing. Getting external feedback and perspectives is a good way to ensure the end product and proposed approach still meet the initial need identified.

D.  How do you really know this is going to work? Of course, in this business, you never really know if it is going to work. But look for sound indicators. With The 4th R, we relied on the evaluation of a pilot that showed the program had tangible impact compared to other schools in one school district where it was piloted over 5 years, with rigorous evaluation. This was pretty good evidence for providing support to expand the program nationally.

E. How quickly or slowly do you need to act?  Problems that have entrenched over many years can’t be resolved in weeks or even years. So what is an appropriate time frame, can some things be implemented right away while others, such as a policy piece wait until there is a proven track record or more detailed research available to support a particular position?

There are a whole new set of careers developing around Competitive Intelligence and I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of it in corporate Canada and then see some spill-over of the concept into the foundation sector.

For more information on Competitive Intelligence, go to The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals.