Establish a competitive intelligence system for your company

With the rise and success of competitive intelligence in the management field of western countries such as the United States and Japan in recent decades, the emerging competitive tool of competitive intelligence is gradually recognized by people. To keep enterprises competitive, enterprises from all over the world begin to focus on competitive intelligence. To adopt competitive intelligence strategies and tactics, we should first establish an enterprise competitive intelligence system within the enterprise. What should managers do in the face of this new enterprise issue?

What is a competitive intelligence system?
Dr. John Prescott, an internationally renowned competitive intelligence expert and former Chairman of the American Association of competitive intelligence practitioners, believes: "A Competitive Intelligence System is an enterprise management subsystem that combines formal and informal operational processes in a sustainable evolution. Its main function is to evaluate key development trends for enterprise organizations and members, tracking ongoing changes, grasping the evolution of the industry structure, and analyzing the capabilities and trends of existing and potential competitors to help enterprises maintain and develop their competitive advantages." As we know from the definition of puleicester, the competitive intelligence system means to maintain and strengthen the overall competitiveness of enterprises. It focuses on the support for strategic decision-making, in addition, this support is based on monitoring and research on all aspects of the enterprise and industry.
In the practice of competitive intelligence, a competitive intelligence system includes three elements: human, intelligence, and computer systems.
"People" include not only professionals engaged in competitive intelligence work, but also other personnel in the enterprise. They refer not only to the entity of "people", but also to the ideology and intelligence consciousness of people. People are the most important factor in the implementation of enterprise competitive intelligence. As early as 1980s, information scientists in Japan made the conclusion that "people are the most important intelligence. People in an enterprise are the most important source of intelligence. Every employee has more or less competitive intelligence. It is an important task to make these intelligence into a competitive intelligence system. At the same time, people are also the main means of information dissemination. Information Transmission is carried out in groups through various means and carriers. Without human participation, information transmission cannot be formed, how to organize the transmission of intelligence in the crowd is an important issue to be solved by the competitive intelligence system. Finally, people are the final reviewers of competitive intelligence. To establish a competitive intelligence system, what we need is not chaotic intelligence, but targeted strategic and tactical intelligence, it also needs to be done by people in the competitive intelligence system.
Intelligence. In the MIS (Management Information System) era of enterprise management, information management is emphasized. However, today, with the increase of Information volume and the intensification of market competition, enterprises pay more and more attention to information management. We can define "intelligence" as a subset of "information" that is closely related to the enterprise's development and strategy. During the operation of the competitive intelligence system, intelligence is always the center of work. The management of intelligence lays the foundation for this work.
Computer system. When establishing a competitive intelligence system, we should apply the most advanced information management technology in this age-computer technology, through computer systems, we can easily manage massive amounts of information in various formats, and fully reduce time-consuming repetitive work. At the same time, computer systems provide great convenience for us to collect, sort, analyze, and disseminate information. competition intelligence systems without computers are unimaginable in this era.

How to establish a competitive intelligence system
The establishment of a competitive intelligence system is based on a full understanding of the competition of enterprises. We should have a prominent requirement for the establishment of a competitive intelligence system: to maintain and improve the competitiveness of enterprises. According to the establishment theory of the competitive intelligence system proposed by American scholar J. saarelainen and the actual situation in China, we believe that the establishment of competitive intelligence can take the following steps:
1. Determination of competitive intelligence requirements;
A competitive intelligence system, as its name implies, should be a system set up for competitive intelligence work. To make full use of this system, we should first clarify what the system will do in the future. Generally, a competitive intelligence system is a decision-making support system established to maintain the stability of enterprise development, the competitive advantage of the enterprise, and the normal Implementation of the enterprise strategy. Therefore, the general intelligence requirements include market environment intelligence, decision-making intelligence, and strategic intelligence. At the same time, different enterprises or unified enterprises may have some special intelligence needs in different periods, such as during the Olympic Games, sporting Goods Enterprises may have a strong demand for sports goods related intelligence during the sports meeting. Therefore, when establishing an enterprise competitive intelligence system, we must first confirm the requirements of such systems. Generally, the requirement for competitive intelligence is raised by the enterprise's management personnel. During the establishment and operation of the competitive intelligence system, management personnel should also continuously provide information feedback and demand reflection to competitive intelligence personnel.
2. Approval for establishing a Competitive Intelligence System (CIS)
Establishing a competitive intelligence system in an enterprise is a strategic project and often needs to be confirmed from the upper layer of the enterprise. After the investigation of competitive intelligence requirements, we should make a plan to list the necessity of establishing a competitive intelligence system and the conditions required for establishing a competitive intelligence system, and report it to the upper layer of the enterprise for approval.
3. Set up a project team for the establishment of a competitive intelligence system
Lipster believes that the construction of a competitive intelligence system should be carried out using the project method. He believes that the establishment of a project-based competitive intelligence system can closely combine the competitive intelligence system with the strategic planning of enterprises; it can provide solutions to specific competitors and problems, effectively manage in a more comprehensive system, improve the effectiveness and efficiency of data management, and provide feasible suggestions. Introducing project management methods in the competitive intelligence system may be the best way to build a competitive intelligence system.
4. determine the elements of the Competitive Intelligence System (CIS)
The elements of a competitive intelligence system are universal. Human, intelligence, and computer systems are the elements of a competitive intelligence system. However, different competitive intelligence systems have different components. Taking "people" in the system as an example, different enterprise competitive intelligence systems need to be composed of different personnel. The composition of competitive intelligence personnel of Research-oriented enterprises and commercial circulation enterprises must be different. What is important is that when we establish a competitive intelligence system, we should fully realize that the elements of the competitive intelligence system should be based on the strategic support of the organization and the maintenance and development of the enterprise's competitive advantages.
5. system documents describing specific programs and System Descriptions
Strict management is required for the competitive intelligence system, because the related work of the competitive intelligence system may involve confidential information of enterprises, and there is also a lot of important data. In this regard, our requirements for competitive intelligence should be accurate, secure, and confidential. Under such requirements, we need to establish relevant system documents while establishing a competitive intelligence system so that the system can run smoothly and continuously improve the system.
6. Operations and execution of the Competitive Intelligence System
The establishment and maintenance personnel of a competitive intelligence system are differentiated. Usually, the personnel of the System Establishment and maintenance personnel are not the same, therefore, necessary training is required for relevant personnel in the enterprise organization. During the training, relevant personnel should be proficient in system operation mechanisms, system operations, system security assurance, system repair, and other issues. Only in this way can the system be truly played.
7. Continuous Improvement of CIS, system processes and methods based on the needs of Competitive Intelligence
The demand is gradually changing in use, and the system will inevitably produce such deficiencies in use. We say that there will never be a perfect competitive intelligence system. Generally, there are two reasons for the demand for competitive intelligence systems: first, the original system functions are insufficient, but new requirements are generated during use. No matter which requirement is generated, we should first study it, confirm the rationality of the requirement, and then evaluate the feasibility of this requirement. Remember that improving the system requires two conditions: necessity and feasibility, so as to avoid unnecessary waste of work.
Competitive Intelligence System Evaluation
The most reliable way to identify the value of a measure is to place it in a fully competitive market environment. The main evaluation indicators of the competitive intelligence system include:
1. Economic Benefits
Economic benefits are the goals pursued by enterprises. Every department of an enterprise should respond economically after applying a competitive intelligence system. A good competitive intelligence system should reduce costs and increase profits, while a failed competitive intelligence system has the opposite results. When evaluating the economic benefits of a competitive intelligence system, you must consider the relationship between long-term and short-term interests. The establishment of a competitive intelligence system may produce short-term benefits, but more importantly, it will produce long-term benefits. We can use the near Present Value Method in accounting for evaluation.
2. Work Efficiency
One of the functions of the competitive intelligence system is to reduce the intermediate transaction costs in the internal operation of the enterprise and share intelligence resources. Through the establishment of a competitive intelligence system, the company should first make the internal intelligence collection work out of the repetitive labor status, and use more time for other enterprises to turn to work. Second, the intelligence collection and dissemination functions played by the competitive intelligence system should play a "lubricant" role in the overall operation of the enterprise, which can "Learn" many activities of the enterprise in advance, so that enterprises can gain some experience before the activity.
3. external rating
The external evaluation of the competitive intelligence system mainly comes from customers, other enterprises and the market. Customers are the first and most direct audience to feel the role of the competitive intelligence system, the implementation of the competitive intelligence system will improve the enterprise's product quality, service level, and the enterprise's ability to meet customer needs and respond. At the same time, other enterprises will also feel this change. The fact of the competitive intelligence system will strengthen their understanding of other enterprises and quickly gain a competitive strategy coordinated with other enterprises, this makes the enterprise more competitive. Finally, a successful competitive intelligence system will receive a good response from the market, which includes the improvement of enterprises' social recognition, brand value, and outstanding humanistic care.
4. Internal Review
After the implementation of the Competitive Intelligence System, the company should also respond accordingly. At the enterprise management layer, the quality and quantity of Decision-Making information are greatly improved, which is one of the most prominent performances. as a decision-making support system, the competitive intelligence system generates a large number of solutions for the strategy and strategy of enterprise operation. At the enterprise's grass-roots level, employees will find that their work is more handy and the efficiency of their respective departments is significantly improved. This is because the competitive intelligence system has transformed some of the previous practices into intelligence operations, at the same time, the efficiency of previous enterprise information management is enhanced.

Conclusion
The development of the Competitive Intelligence System in China's enterprises is still in its infancy. This situation has both a good and a negative aspect. The disadvantage is that our enterprise's competitive intelligence system is slow, and there are not many domestic cases for our reference. At the same time, we have not formed a sound system to standardize and evaluate the construction of the Enterprise Competitive Intelligence System; the advantage is that our enterprise's competitive intelligence system is relatively flexible in terms of technology and system because it is in its infancy. You can refer to successful or failed cases in foreign countries to avoid detours, the hardware of the competitive intelligence system is large.
Looking at the competitive intelligence construction of our enterprises, we found that we still need to do a lot more. This powerful competitive tool has not yet been popularized in China. It is a pity. What we can do now can only be: continuous efforts.

References
[1] Markku J. saarelainen. ntelligence systems behavior newsletter, rjl, 2000 from http://www.deja.com/
[2] John Prescott. Establishment and service of the enterprise competitive intelligence system, training materials of Tsinghua University vocational manager training center