02 juillet 2008
Is CI to be reduced to a private spying little business?
Is the globalization of trade the "economic warfare" as some people use to say in France? Is competitive intelligence a “combat system” in the service of the companies for fighting each others? Is competitive intelligence a new field for former cold warriors? Is spying the actual intelligence business? Is ethics just a way of speaking? Is OSINT nothing but a forest that hides any evil tree? Is this sort of “economic cold war” the sign of an overheating situation, and not only for the climate?
In the other hand, could CI be considered as a tool for “sustainable economic intelligence”? Should it be used for a peaceful economic development based on information and knowledge management and collective intelligence?
Finally, are those questions philosophically relevant or currently ridiculous? Anyway, it doesn’t cost anything to ask them, since it would be such a pity to cut the branch on which we sat...
21 juin 2008
The analyst as a manager of the collection strategy
The collection plan is a key document indexing the intelligence requirements expressed by the decision makers. Theoretically it seems quite simple to express information needs but in fact, it appears difficult for the trainees to express clearly and in a relevant way, the requirements in strategic information related to a CI project.
It seems that this difficulty is related to two overlapping factors: a bad appropriation/control/intelligence of the project or problem to be solved, then a feeling of illegitimacy which inhibits the transmission of directives.
A solution consists in using what we call in French “infomediaire” (“information intermediary”) in the person of the analyst. As an information manager, he has to connect two universes: the informational team and the decision makers. Thus the analyst is as well a translator, as an interpreter, as a knowledge mediator.
What is consequently the analyst’s task?
First, to ask the preliminary good questions to the decision makers:
- Tell me about your strategic views? What’s your project? What are the objectives? Tell me about the context? What’s the problem? What do you want exactly?
- What are the stages of the project? Tell me about the constraints, the key success factor form your point of view?
- What is the state of our knowledge on the subject?
- Can you define our assets, weaknesses, vulnerabilities?
This first interrogation aims to understand the DM’s strategic vision in order to identify the different stakes.
However, the analyst keeps in mind, regarding the complexity theory, that asking questions does not simplify situations, quite to the contrary. Thus he has to prepare himself to face complexity because questioning may be a factor of anxiousness from which he must preserve the DM.
Second, to ask the questions directly related to the objectives of the organization. For example, to put the question “what are future key technologies of the Internet?” is different than “How to position our company compared to future key technologies of the Internet?”The second question implies a dynamics related to the organization whereas the first question remains a simple subject of curiosity which involves a second question: so what?
This brings a corollary remark: when the watching team or the intelligence services are not implied upstream a decision making process, their production comes to be grafted with more or less relevance on cognitive diagrams formed by a mixture of intuitions and collective intelligence of the decision makers, which are difficult to make evolve.
How to identify the requirements in information?
They can be obtained from various methods:
- Strategic analysis matrices can be used as guidelines (SWOT, PESTEL...)
- elicitation which consists in interviewing managers and experts in order to identify explicit and implicit needs
- brainstorming to make emerge needs or ideas within a group
- immersion in the available data from which a need can emerge (following the concept of serendipity)
These methods make it possible the analyst to collect the questioning, to formalize the strategic issues, and to work out priorities according to the importance and the urgency of the needs. It is consequently possible to organize the collection (teams, structures, means, directives, limits), and to prepare the evaluation of the production compared with the objectives, in order to measure the effectiveness of it.
The collection plan, worked out by the analyst as an organizer-mediator, does not appear any more as an abstraction from the watchers point of view. In return, the production is not any more the mirror of painful and crippling informational vacuity of the decision maker.
10 juin 2008
L'analyste, animateur médiateur du plan de recherche
Le plan de recherche d’information est un document formalisé dans lequel sont répertoriés les besoins en information, exprimés par les décideurs. Ainsi posé les choses semblent simples et pourtant, par expérience, j’ai pu noter combien les étudiants éprouvent toujours une grande difficulté à exprimer clairement et de manière pertinente, les besoins en information stratégique au sein d'un dispositif de veille.
Il semble que cette difficulté soit liée à deux facteurs imbriqués : une mauvaise appropriation/maîtrise du projet ou de la problématique à résoudre, laquelle entraîne un sentiment d’illégitimité qui inhibe la transmission de consignes.
Une solution consiste à utiliser un « infomédiaire » en la personne de l’analyste. En tant que spécialiste de l’ « infoconnaissance », son rôle est de relier l’univers de l’information et celui de la décision. L’analyste est donc un traducteur, un interprète, un médiateur de la connaissance.
Quel est dès lors le rôle de l’analyste ?
En premier lieu, poser les bonnes questions préalables :
- Quelles sont nos orientations stratégiques ? Quel est notre projet? Quels sont nos objectifs? Quel est le contexte? Quel est le problème?
- Quels en sont les étapes? Les contraintes? Les facteurs clés de succès ?
- Quel est l’état de nos connaissances dans ce domaine?
- Quels sont nos atouts? Nos faiblesses? Nos vulnérabilités?
Cette première interrogation vise une meilleure compréhension de l’organisation en relation avec son environnement.
Toutefois, l’analyste garde toujours à l’esprit que l’environnement est complexe et que le fait de poser des questions ne simplifie pas les choses, bien au contraire. Il lui faut donc se préparer à affronter la complexité. En ce sens, le questionnement peut être anxiogène parce qu’il entre en contradiction avec l’idée d’une réduction de l’incertitude, chère au décideur. L’analyste se défendra ainsi de transmettre cette angoisse, car la connaissance doit venir sans contrainte à l’esprit du décideur.
En second lieu, et par conséquent, il s’agit pour l’analyste de poser les questions qui ont un rapport direct avec l’organisation, afin de rester au plus près de la problématique, et ne pas s’égarer. Par exemple, poser la question « quelles sont les futures technologies clés de l’Internet ? », n’a pas la même valeur ni les mêmes conséquences, que « comment nous positionner par rapport aux futures technologies clés de l’Internet ?» La deuxième question implique une dynamique liée à l’organisation alors que la première reste un simple sujet de curiosité.
Ceci amène une remarque corolaire : lorsque les services de veille, tout comme les services de renseignement, ne sont pas impliqués en amont du processus de décision, leurs informations viennent se greffer avec plus ou moins de bonheur, sur des schémas cognitifs, formés par un mélange d’intuitions et de constructions collectives difficiles à faire évoluer.
Comment identifier et formaliser les besoins en information ?
L’expression des besoins peut être obtenue de différentes manières :
- A partir des matrices d’analyse stratégique qui peuvent servir de guide (SWOT, PESTEL, …)
- Par élicitation, méthode qui consiste à interroger les managers et experts sur leurs besoins explicites ou non
- Par la méthode du brainstorming qui consiste à faire émerger les besoins au sein d’un groupe
- Par l’immersion dans les données disponibles à partir desquels un besoin peut émerger (principe de sérendipité)
Ces quatre méthodes permettent à l’analyste de recueillir les questionnements, de formaliser les problématiques stratégiques, et d’élaborer des priorités en fonction de l’importance et de l’urgence des besoins. Il est dès lors possible d’organiser le dispositif de recherche (équipes, structures, moyens, consignes, limites), et d’en déduire une grille d’évaluation des objectifs, afin d’en mesurer l’efficacité.
Le plan de recherche d’information, ainsi élaboré par un animateur-médiateur, n’apparaît plus comme une abstraction chez les veilleurs. En retour, les informations transmises ne sont plus le miroir de la douloureuse et rédhibitoire vacuité informationnelle du manager.
29 mai 2008
A framework for competitive intelligence education
In spring 2004, Alain Juillet created a commission for education, inviting 14 experts (I was one of them) to work at the elaboration of a national framework destined to become the “label” for CI studies.
After nine months of brainstorming and knowledge management, the team published the a framework for CI education, built on the five pillars of CI knowledge as it should be taught. However, as far as the framework is a guide for developing homogeneous national programs, it is not the ultimate mean to become the best course in the charts. It gives indications to develop the right learning contents, but it doesn’t give the way of the good strategy, methods and tools.
1 - International environment and competitiveness
Both the society of information and the economy of immaterial are changing the traditional order of economical exchanges. The information and knowledge market is a new exchange and trading space. CI gives the ability to change information into operational and strategic knowledge.
Rethinking strategies of the companies and governments, CI is considered as a cultural and operational response to globalisation in the society of information.
Teaching goals: to identify and analyse geopolitics and economic keys in order to guide stakeholders and decision makers.
Topics: Theory of information; Globalisation; Geopolitics and geo-economy; Organizations of international trading; Non governmental organisations and alternative movements ; Competition and economic warfare; Technologies of information and knowledge; Knowledge and information intensive firms; Information market; CI research; National CI systems and organizations; Global risk management; Informational risks; Economical crime; Economical defence and security; History of CI; Compared National systems of CI
Keywords: Globalisation, competitiveness; multinational firms; geo-economics; data; information; knowledge; technologies of information; knowledge management; risk management
2- CI and organizations
CI must be taken by firms as a model of management. But scientific studies show that they have some difficulty acquiring and implenting on regular basis. The phenomenon was identified as a cultural problem. It will evolve over a long time, through education.
Teaching goals:
- To define the stakes of CI as a success key factor to achieve strategic goals.
- To organize and quicken internal conferences to advise the employees and managers within firms and administrations
- To form, carry out, supervise and control a CI project
Topics: Strategy, information and Decision making; Strategic analysis; CI project management; Communication and psychology of organisations; Network centric management; Ethics, rights, legality of CI; CI organizational and operational Process; CI marketing; Inside and outside CI actors; Internal audit of information and CI; Evaluation, indicators, instrument panels
Keywords: strategy, analysis, success key factors; decision making; CI project; right, ethics, networks, outsourcing, audit, evaluation
3 - Information and knowledge management
Intelligence cycle is considered as the heart of CI process: defining the needs, collecting and analysing data, disseminating information and knowledge to decision makers.
Teaching goals:
- To identify and define the information problems and needs of the organisation
- To organize the data-to-information and knowledge process
- To manage the relationship between information collectors, analysts and decision makers.
Topics: Strategic analysis and informational needs; Sourcing: typology of information, identification and use of sources; Methods, techniques and tools; Right, ethics and deontology; Psychology and human factor in interrelationship; Multicultural factors; Intelligence analysis; Decision aid; Groupware; Knowledge management
Keywords: Intelligence cycle, Knowledge management, strategic analysis, information sourcing, scanning methods and tools; right, ethics and deontology
4 - Security and defence of immaterial patrimony
Identify and protect the competitive assets of the organizations.
Teaching goals:
- To define and organize the strategy of information security
- To manage informational risks
- To prevent and manage informational crisis
Topics: Information and knowledge patrimony; Intellectual and industrial property; Strategy and use of patents; Security policy and information systems; Management of crisis
Keywords: intellectual and industrial property, patents, trade mark, copyright, infringement, security, informational crisis
5 - Influence and counter-influence
In a context of hypercompetition, information is considered as an arm used for disinformation, intoxi-cation, and destabilization. It is necessary to identify the risks and threats that can affect the strategy of a firm or a government.
Lobbying is largely used in the strategy of influence by firms or by groups of interest. It can determine the decisions of international organization at the expense of firms regarding the traditional competitive rules.
Teaching goals:
- To identify information risks (disinformation, rumors, perception management, deception)
- To identify and understand the strategies of influence and counter-influence
- To use information and knowledge as offensive and defensive strategic tools
Topics: Strategies of influence and counter-influence; Methods, techniques and tools of influence; Psychology of manipulation and disinformation; Perception management; Offensive and defensive use of information and knowledge; Lobbying; To form and carry out a strategy of influence and counter-influence; Evaluate and manage the risks of influence
Keywords: influence, lobbying, disinformation, stakeholders, destabilisation, non governmental organizations, rumour
Download the French Framework for CI education : http://www.intelligence-economique.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/referentiel_IE_numerote.pdf
French Policy for Competitive Intelligence
1 – TWELVE YEARS EXPERIENCE : THE FEEDBACK
French CI was officially born in 1994 with a report published by the French « Commissariat général du Plan »: « Intelligence économique et stratégie des entreprises » (Business Intelligence and company strategy). The purpose of this report was to recognize business intelligence as a fundamental concept, methodology and tool, within the context of the new economy of information and knowledge. The French government decided to launch a movement toward a new way of managing strategic information.
Since CI was known by a few individuals in a reduced number of companies, as “technology or information scanning”, it was necessary to generalize the practice of information networks between companies and administrations, in order to optimize the collection, the analysis, the dissemination and the operational use of information. To advance from individual to collective intelligence, both the issue and the goal of a national CI policy was to maintain a strategic position in the worldwide economical competition, by using and sharing information and knowledge.
Henri Martre’s report was a small first step on the long way to a national cultural change. Sharing information was not, and is not yet, a natural feature of French business culture. Information was, and is still considered as a power asset which must not be shared in order to preserve ones position in the organization (companies or administrations). As showed earlier (Bulinge, 2002), individualism is a primary characteristic of French culture. Therefore CI, as a network centric approach for collective intelligence, was like a UFO in the managers’ sky. Thus it was illusionary to expect any change before several years and without a strong and constant effort.
Nine years after Martre’s report, CI was still cracking out of its shell. For example, it was impossible to agree on a unique definition: more than 25 individual definitions were identified (Bulinge, Larivet, 2002), and it can be said that there were as many definitions as authors, in the small French CI community. It was like the tower of Babel, and the semantic controversy was the main wall between theory and practice. During those years, education and research were differently developed by each school.
In 2003, the situation was heterogeneous and quite chaotic, so Prime Minister gave Bernard Carayon, a French republican deputy, the mission to audit the French CI community. In his report, Bernard Carayon denounced a lack of unity and coherence in the educational programs for CI. At the same time, he underlined the discrepancy between educational supply and the real needs of companies.
French CI had been built without planning; its diversity had become a weakness. Studies in CI were victims of this weakness, as far as companies were not able to have a clear vision of what they could do with CI as a concept. Most schools provided a theoretical courses incapable of satisfying operational needs, when these needs were identified (which was rarely the case). In order to clarify and define the CI profession, there were two starting points:
- to make decision makers aware of the importance of CI,
- and then to initiate managers to the process.
Unfortunately, the diversity of language kept them from understanding and from clearly profiling human resources within their organizations.
Moreover, CI suffered from a centred vision on the part of researchers who omitted to consider the diversity, the specific cultural factors and the micro-economic reality of companies. They were developing models inappropriate to individual situations.
Furthermore, the French government itself was qualified as “blind and without strategic priority”, and Carayon declared : “The French state has neither defined strategic activities –in terms of sovereignty, employment, influence-, nor the technologies attached to these activities, in particular hardware. In the same way, it failed to evaluate the forces and the strengths of national research, as well as those of French firms in these domains”
2 - A PUBLIC POLICY
As a result of Carayon’s report, the French Prime Minister decided to implement a national policy in CI. President Chirac designated a national director for CI, Alain Juillet, former head of intelligence in the French secret service (DGSE), and the former director of diverse companies, of which the last one was Mark and Spencer’s. At the head of a small staff, Alain Juillet began to coordinate the implementation of CI, and to organize a national model.
Today, the mission consists in:
- disseminating a culture of CI
- helping the SMEs
- protecting national industry from strategic dependence
- protecting technological and industrial capital
- providing information and knowledge about the future in order to reduce uncertainty
Franck BULINGE - International Conference on Competitive Intelligence and Knowledge Management, Trade Univesity of Vietnam, Hanoi, August 23rd, 2006
