My observations on business intelligence and development

I recently received a very powerful image from a work colleague, intended as a metaphor for the reality of corporate consulting in today's context. I'll describe it for you: in a film by the famous Charlie Chaplin, we see the latter running in a fresco all his own and at the top of his lungs behind a streetcar departing from a station. After a few seconds, he barely manages to catch up, finally grabbing the handrail and leaping onto the rear platform where a few passengers are already seated. Relieved, but sweating, he sits down, pulls a cloth handkerchief from his pocket and brings it to his forehead.

In this metaphor, the tramway is the business context in which your customer is sitting, and whose destination he, like everyone else, probably doesn't know. Chaplin is the advisor who has to quickly understand the customer's issues if he is not to miss just that... the train. The ordeal is difficult enough, imagine having to keep track of several streetcars at the same time!

As life is well done, tools exist to help advisors in these times when streetcars are going at full speed and even passengers can't all keep up. Market insights are a good example of this.

Doing business intelligence, or getting business intelligence through a third party, enables business consultants to add value to their expertise by having a heightened and up-to-date knowledge of customer issues in addition to being seen as a relevant and strategic source of information. These aspects are fundamental to being credible in front of customers and having added value from the very first moments of intervention.

Watch for your own use

Of course, if what's good for others is good for oneself, doing intelligence for one's organization is an excellent way to keep up to date on best practices in support, monitor opportunities for investment attractions and be well aware of direct customer actions to react.

In summary

I believe that strategic intelligence is a fundamental element in properly supporting companies and fully accomplishing the mission of the development organization. Digital information is now ubiquitous, tools are democratized and artificial intelligence also brings interesting accessibility.

In an upcoming article, I'll discuss the winning conditions for successful intelligence, as well as the types of intelligence that can be relevant to your customers and to your organization or consultancy. We'll also revisit the issue of artificial intelligence, which is a double-edged sword for the strategic intelligence officer.

See you soon!