This article is called Competitive Intelligence is a complete waste of time. It describes how powerful ego, knowing better because they are the experts and not even looking for the signs of change is great news for your competitors. The article explains why you don’t need Competitive Intelligence.
Its a waste of time
Competitive Intelligence is a complete waste of time.
It’s our competitors who have a problem. They need the winning move, and their future is unclear.
What global pandemic? A new product that is on the market and it is going to destroy you? Key team members leave because their voice is ignored? We don’t need Competitive Intelligence. Not us we will be just fine.
Please ignore and it will go away
Please ignore it, sit on your hands and stop spending money.
It will go away and things will carry on as they used to be.
As you may know, most companies know everything they need to know about their competitive environment:
- And they do not want to reduce uncertainty within their business.
- And gain an understanding of their competitors business model and what their plans are.
- Or understand how they conduct their business.
- And take advantage of their competitors’ weaknesses and counter their strengths.
- Outthink and outperform their competitors.
- Achieve early warning of any actions that could bite them.
- Gain the unbiased views, truth and analysis.
- They have improved their decision making by listening to me. We know everything as the senior team, and I have been in the industry for years.
- Process improvement. We have been there and done that.
- They don’t need to develop a culture of competitiveness by all been aware of the competition. We don’t have any competitors
We don’t have competitors is a statement we hear a lot
- Or focus on a product and service of a competitor to up their game.
- Or need to understand what is their competitors’ customer service is like? Who cares? It’s who you know, not what you know.
- What’s their rivals their pricing structure?
- Or understand how do their competitors sell their products?
- Who are the best people in their competitors’ operation? If our best people want to move to them, more fool them. We don’t have any competitors anyway.
- Make the most of trade shows, rather than just sell more stuff and have a few beers in the hotel.
- What will we learn from understanding their competitors’ distribution strategy? Nothing we have the best suppliers and logistics in the market.
- We don’t care what our competitors next moves and we have all the best business anyway.
- Don’t need to know why we lose business or not get that tender? Must be down to brown paper bags or the old boy network
- What do people think of you? And your competitors – well, we may have said this before, but we don’t have any competitors.
Ego
Individuals egos are just brilliant for competitors. Sometimes Companies with domineering leader resist using Competitive Intelligence and the alternative thinking that comes with it. Because they’ve been successful in the past and they are so experienced no one can tell them about how to do things. And the senior team will agree with the boss.
Blockbuster and Kodak
Blockbuster knew all about the threat from streaming services but did nothing about it. Streaming services did not creep up on Blockbuster. Netflix and its predecessors wandered down Blockbusters garden path, took a leak on the roses, kicked over the trash cans and shouted into the letterbox. Blockbuster knew better and chose to close the curtains and stick their expensive popcorn in their ears. It was a whole board of directors in Blockbusters case. What stopped Blockbuster from moving into streaming? They were too comfortable and lacked any foresight and drive to do something about it.
Incidentally, another company that is often given as an example of failure to see the future is Kodak. But guess who invented the digital camera? Yep, you guessed it. Kodak. Why did they not see their problems coming? There are many reasons, but the key one was that they did not see themselves as camera makers. They saw themselves as a chemical company. Even when they moved into printers, the critical reason for doing so was to sell more ink.
Now in the case of Kodak, it is debatable if they failed. They are still leaders in certain types of chemical markets but have moved from B2C to B2B. They are specialist and market-leading in photography related chemicals.
This is them, not you of course
They think it’s their competitors who have a problem. They need the winning move, and their future is unclear. We don’t need some Competitive Intelligence.
What global pandemic? A new product that is on the market and it is going to destroy them? Key team members leaving because their opinions are being ignored? They ignore things. It will go away. Sit on their hands, hide in the bunker and wait until it’s all back to normal.
This article was called Competitive Intelligence is a complete waste of time. It described how powerful ego is for competitors, knowing better because they are the experts and not even looking at the signs of change. The article told us why you don’t need Competitive Intelligence.
