Your "keys" to enhanced strategic intelligence

Many of you devote time, on a regular or ad hoc basis, to individual and informal monitoring based on newsletters and subscriptions to specialist magazines. Thinking of taking it to the next level? This post is for you!

What's in it for you:

• Save time searching and monitoring;
• Better, more strategic and less "mainstream" information;
• Information that leads to measurable strategic development;
• A corporate culture more committed to innovation and initiative-taking.

What are the 5 "keys" to success:

1- Prioritize the issues to be monitored

While this step may seem obvious, it's vital not to underestimate this phase, and to call on team members to place more strategic value on your watch. Are you tracking market trends? Competitors' new products? Regulatory frameworks? In a context of information overload, that's already a lot of sources to process. Artificial intelligence used by platforms can help reduce the effects of this overabundance, but can also harm the intelligence provider by suggesting sources that are not relevant.

2- Establish performance indicators or KPIs for your watch

Yes, even intelligence can be the subject of clear, quantifiable performance evaluations! Here, there are mainly two categories:

• Spreading reach performance: this is the interest of the group being polled in relation to your watch. Open rate, links clicked, time spent on the newsletter, number of readers, etc... This is generally more relevant for large organizations with a significant readership.
• Qualitative performance: the number of opportunities found, the number of news items that prompted strategic action and a subjective appreciation of the exercise are just a few examples.

3- Specific value-added sources

This is probably the most important aspect of driving action in your organization. To give you an edge over your competitors, it's important to identify additional sources other than media articles, newsletters and the infamous "Google alerts". Media sources are important, but they have the drawback of being received by a mass of watchers, and Google alerts have the drawback of being displayed according to your types of interest and require sufficient sharing as well as a properly referenced source.  So, for both these sources, you probably won't find the strategic "Edge" you're looking for.

To have a clear strategic input, it makes sense to use paid sources intimately related to your watch fields, specialized magazines and identify well-informed individuals.

4- Effective intelligence tools

Based on your needs and budget, simple intelligence tools with dashboard-creating interfaces and collaborative features are highly recommended. We've seen intelligence projects fall by the wayside because the dissemination of information was neglected and not "talked about" enough. To address this aspect of intelligence, we have mapped over a hundred platforms and are able to make recommendations based on your needs.

The majority of tools also rely on the contribution of artificial intelligence to identify new sources or filter the masses of information you receive. These modules are very interesting, but can present challenges and still need to be monitored to ensure that this intelligence meets your objectives.

The majority of tools also rely on the contribution of artificial intelligence to identify new sources or filter the masses of information you receive.

5- Collaborators and corporate activation

We often talk about this last because we're going back to a linear process here, but it's important right from the start of the project to have identified collaborators and an activation mechanism. It's at this stage that intelligence becomes an indispensable tool in your organization.

Many of your organization's business units can be activated around intelligence results. Whether it's marketing with adapted positioning, business development with competition monitoring, or an innovation unit tracking technological developments, monitoring patents and the regulatory framework. All these units can benefit from intelligence as part of their strategic meetings. More generally, intelligence can be used to reinforce your organizational culture and mobilize it more around innovation, aspects of social responsibility or even employer branding.