STRATEGIC_INTELLIGENCE
INTRODUCTION TO
STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE
GIA WHITE PAPER 2/2004
Executive Summary
Strategic intelligence (SI) is an important tool in informing and supporting strategic management activities in different stages of the strategy development. In short, Strategic Intelligence can be defined as “a systematic and continuous process of producing needed intelligence of strategic value in an actionable form to facilitate long-term decisionmaking”. Customers of SI include individuals involved in strategic decision-making.
From the process perspective, Strategic Intelligence can be seen as a part of Competitive Intelligence, as it is also a systematic and continuous process with a purpose to facilitate decision-making with needed and timely intelligence input delivered in actionable form. The major difference between SI and CI is that SI actions focus strictly on supporting strategic decision-making by monitoring aspects with strategic significance. Additionally, a SI time horizon is broad and the focus is on all significant events: past, present and future events.
In order to practice effective Strategic Intelligence capable of meeting the needs of strategic
management and introducing intelligence of strategic value into the decision-making process, certain critical aspects should be considered. They include: • Appointing a strategic level process owner, preferably the VP for Corporate Strategy, and a seasoned SI Manager. It enables integrating the best available internal senior expertise into the
SI process.
• Knowing and understanding the internal SI customers - individuals involved in strategic planning. • Defining the SI priorities and properly communicating them (critical strategic themes, key players to be analyzed, early warning themes). • Designing and producing SI products that serve customers’ content needs and communication needs. • Building a network of Strategic Intelligence contributors, both internal and external.
STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE
GIA WHITE PAPER 2/2004
Executive Summary
Strategic intelligence (SI) is an important tool in informing and supporting strategic management activities in different stages of the strategy development. In short, Strategic Intelligence can be defined as “a systematic and continuous process of producing needed intelligence of strategic value in an actionable form to facilitate long-term decisionmaking”. Customers of SI include individuals involved in strategic decision-making.
From the process perspective, Strategic Intelligence can be seen as a part of Competitive Intelligence, as it is also a systematic and continuous process with a purpose to facilitate decision-making with needed and timely intelligence input delivered in actionable form. The major difference between SI and CI is that SI actions focus strictly on supporting strategic decision-making by monitoring aspects with strategic significance. Additionally, a SI time horizon is broad and the focus is on all significant events: past, present and future events.
In order to practice effective Strategic Intelligence capable of meeting the needs of strategic
management and introducing intelligence of strategic value into the decision-making process, certain critical aspects should be considered. They include: • Appointing a strategic level process owner, preferably the VP for Corporate Strategy, and a seasoned SI Manager. It enables integrating the best available internal senior expertise into the
SI process.
• Knowing and understanding the internal SI customers - individuals involved in strategic planning. • Defining the SI priorities and properly communicating them (critical strategic themes, key players to be analyzed, early warning themes). • Designing and producing SI products that serve customers’ content needs and communication needs. • Building a network of Strategic Intelligence contributors, both internal and external.