Much like this box of lego, Jan was dealing with a mess. Source
The first day I met Jan (a real person, her name has been changed) - the CEO of a growing startup - I knew I was in for a trip. I was convinced she had the entirety of the internet between her inbox and her computer and that she had enough data to bury her for the next thirty years.
Venn Innovation (represented by me, Jonathan Dunnett), consultant Jonathan Calof and our partner team helped Jan by asking her what really mattered to her organization, and then began equipping her with the skills to deal with the data, answer her key questions and move her business forward. Helping her breathe and leave the shackles of stress and too much data was an awesome outcome. Jan has now begun her voyage on the road to using competitive intelligence effectively. She now asks better questions, focuses on what matters, and ignores the rest.
Helping professionals like Jan leads me to one conclusion: in Atlantic Canada, we are better together as a region. When we can help each other be successful, we all win.
Over the last two years, Venn Innovation has been working across Atlantic Canada with partners, including NSBI and Genesis, to help companies make sense of what’s happening outside of their organization to help them understand how they need to act internally through different programs, like Win/Loss analysis, Trade Show Intelligence and more.
Put another way: every business is a ship. Competitive intelligence (sometimes called market intelligence, market insights, competitive insights or otherwise) is the rudder which helps you go in the right direction.
Imagine being a ship without a rudder: not good for a journey. Source
ACOA, to its credit, first recognized the need for this program, and has been a great supporter throughout the process. Much like any other discipline within a company, whether it be sales, marketing, or accounting, competitive intelligence and strategy is an area where we need to build skills in small and medium companies (SMEs) across Atlantic Canada to make us globally competitive.
How does this apply to me and my business?
Let’s look at four short examples:
I’m a one-person company selling lip balms: So, who is your customer? Should you be selling in person or online? Are there legal requirements that you have? How do I find distributors? How do I scale and grow my business?
I’m a tourism operator: What insights do I have on my existing customers? How can/should I be thinking about my data? What do I need to understand to help drive more customers and sales? What markets provide the best return on investment?
I’m a medium-sized manufacturer: How are the prices of raw materials changing and what financial impact will that have on me? Who are my top competitors and how are they better than me? Who should you be using for suppliers? What signals are my customers giving me: will sales be up or down this year and why?
I’m a large seafood company: What should be my next market? Who is in that market already? What supply chain and logistic considerations do I need to consider? How can I differentiate my product to the market? What companies out there can I buy to help me grow faster? What’s the right growth strategy?
All of these happen outside of your organization, but as you can see, the significance can be powerful and can directly impact you and your decisions. All of these questions can be answered by competitive intelligence.
What’s the process, you ask? Do I download the internet and figure it out? Well, no… there’s a process.
Source: FHWA
While the graphic at the top is simple, how you arrive takes work: much like any other discipline. Good things don’t come without work.
What have we learned in the last two years?
We’ve seen a number of things during this program:
Atlantic Canadians are among the best in the world in terms of the right cultural fit for adopting competitive intelligence. We share, we communicate and we like to win against “the others.”
There are many mature companies doing bits and pieces of this, but often, it’s informal. By formalizing processes, this is where we’ve seen the greatest impact for growing small and medium companies.
Small companies, including startups, really benefit as it helps them to focus on the right things, not everything. We often hear, “this helps me focus.”
Companies that take training often recognize that they need to build on these skills. Much like any other domain of business, whether sales, marketing, product development or other, we have to build expertise in order to be able to answer, “What’s our strategic response going to be to _____________________?”
Finally, the biggest element that we’ve seen is that I firmly believe many companies across a number of sectors, could be 10 times the size and scale of what they are today. That is, if they want to be.
We have seen firms that are global in abilities, product/service and technology, but we often downplay ourselves. As Alicia Ismach, Venn Innovation’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence, shares, “Atlantic Canadians are too humble. You have amazing talent, products and services, but you don’t talk about them like they’re world-class, and that’s wrong.”
Where do we go from here?
We’re looking to continue to develop skills that can help you answer these questions and more. We’re looking for companies that are serious about their growth. We’ve seen a number of these companies in our journey, but we need to see more.
If you’re a company that has been doing business as usual, but you want to improve specific aspects of your business or you want to really supercharge your growth, there is no better way to do it than understanding what’s happening outside your four walls.
If you want to learn more about competitive intelligence and how it can help your organization, please check out our website and send me an email. I’d be delighted to have a conversation with you.
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