tfpl blog

Global Knowledge businesses: Large horizons, big ambitions, lots of compromise

Author: Julia Hordle
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Director - Corporate Intelligence Recruitment

Observation/ Spring 2010:

Galvanised into action by a comfort break in market crises, clients have serious business to pursue as well as root and branch re-structuring to achieve.

But globalisation and off-shoring has made the art of resourcing an international business more complex, not simpler, in the immediate term.

One client, in a rhetorical mood said:  “How do we find the numbers of people we need, with the sophistication we need, in the locations we need? ...the short answer is that this year, we can’t!”

Comment:

With seismic shifts in investment patterns and shifts also in trade alliances, no resource planner can be confident in establishing highly-engineered hubs in fixed locations, as demand for knowledge-rich roles ebbs and flows between continents.

So what does this mean for hirers and recruitment consultants alike?

• One global talent pool, but impeded eligibility to work, language barriers and cost of migration
• The need to appoint local experts to a global team, but to educate them quickly
• Compromise. If it is only possible to find a person with all the qualities and experience we need in a high cost location, let us enjoy having them in a convenient place.

Not for the first time, we are hearing more than one grand plan flummoxed because the experience talent planners imagined must be available in the offshore location, simply is not there.

I know the human race has improved online communications so we don’t have to be in the same room to share or confer. But the need to do business with someone we can laugh with, drink tea with and shake by the hand is still so important, especially for focused knowledge transfer and resilient business relationships.

It isn’t really the case that London has moved instantly from being an optimum location to one of last resort. There is still a huge amount of talent here, which superficially may look expensive but can be very cost effective.

What is TFPL Intelligent Resources doing to help our flummoxed clients?

• Reaching beyond the UK in our networking and marketing, to help you find talent overseas or attract professionals across borders.
• Cultivating contacts who can Connect geographies as well as special interest groups
• We make no assumptions when searching. We understand that some candidates can and will want to get on their bike, plane or train to find work.
• Due diligence to inform compromise if choices have to be made.

Does the location conundrum flummox you too? I’d like to hear from you if you are grappling with exactly this kind of issue.

Help us map the market for business and competitor intelligence

Author: Julia Hordle
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Director - Corporate Intelligence Recruitment

Joining up with TFPL doesn’t mean the old “Intelligent Resources” team has lost its zeal for developing the market for skills in Intelligence disciplines. Far from it, the TFPL offering has diversified since we joined up last year. This has broadened the choice of roles in the TFPL recruitment portfolio for people with strong commercial and information/research/analytical skills.

Ivan (Radulovic) and I have been contributing  to the UK-CIF board and panel since a group of passionate practitioners decided to breathe bit more life into the CI forum in the UK, and not be quite so reliant on the US administration of SCIP. In particular, we are interested in mapping the communities of people in the UK with an interest in Intelligence.

In our Corporate Intelligence recruitment team, we already know that there is vibrant demand for people with the right mix of skills and experience for collection and communication of commercial intelligence, and more specifically, demand for people with the ability to see significance and steer strategic thinking. Practitioners exist within “pure” Consulting and Strategy roles, exist in Sales and Business pursuit, in Procurement/sourcing and in investment and advisory businesses. What is your interest? I’d love to know…

HOW YOU COULD PARTICIPATE:

NEXT EVENT:   The UK Competitive Intelligence Forum will be hosting its forthcoming networking event on 10th June around the theme of career planning. (please look out for event details nearer the time)

Market research for UK CIF:   HOW WELL DO WE KNOW OURSELVES?

To enrich the event in June we are undertaking some classic market research to obtain a foundation of understanding with respect to:

• How practitioners entered the discipline
• Their existing trials and tribulations, perception, value measurement, focus
• How practitioners will evolve

It will help us all to know the emerging market for skills in the UK better than we do at present – we are hoping to provide a hub of information and interest for the UK community.

Please help us all by completing the survey - It will only take 10 minutes and every recipient will receive a summary of the results, from UK CIF. 

Take the Survey 'Intelligent Intelligence Career Planning'

As of today, 28/04/2010, we have already had an encouraging response, but your input will help make sure what we get is an accurate and balanced overall picture. Please do join in.

For my sins, I’m also involved in planning the event on June 10^th and would be delighted to hear from anyone who would have an interest in speaking or joining a panel for debate, or providing some sponsorship to UK CIF. Please get in touch as soon as you can. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Careers in Competitive Intelligence

Author: Ivan Radulovic
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Consultant

Professional Effectiveness and Personal Improvement as a CI Practitioner Panel Debate - Tuesday 9th March from 5pm - 8pm

Have you ever wondered what will happen next to you and your CI career?  Have you ever wondered how you can make that next move?  Have you ever thought about how you can prepare yourself so that when that opportunity comes, you are confident enough to say “yes, I’m ready”?  Just as a business has to set out a plan for the future, work out its objectives and then craft a strategy which will enable it to achieve its objectives.  We have to do exactly the same thing if we want to make things happen for us rather than have things happen to us.

CI practitioners are a distinct breed of expert, frequently working across boundaries and outside of any normal understanding of functional structures.  They are typically self motivated, particularly good at keeping balls in the air and usually revelling in the erratic and sporadic nature of daily tasks.  This can all bring its own problems of course, in that the lack of routine sometimes means they begin to neglect their own development needs and there is a danger that they could stagnate. Trouble is, nobody else really understands them so they don’t know what to suggest either?  As with many other speciality roles, it is up to them to make their future happen.

TFPL Intelligent Resources is a proud sponsor of the UK Competitive Intelligence Forum which is to host an event which will address some of the above issues and hopefully get people thinking about their careers and how to put yourself in the driving seat to manage their progress.  We have four excellent panellists who will present their perspective on four different areas of the CI role.  They are:

• Martin Ainsworth has worked in both the public and private sectors including strategic management consultancy, investment banking and specialised financial services. He has managed and delivered services across a range of disciplines including Business Information, Knowledge Management, Information Technology and Market Data.  He contends that CI builds on the foundations of KIM to deliver analytical tools that are fast, factual and actionable.  He also delivers training in the UK on behalf of the Institute for Competitive Intelligence in Germany.

• Mary Banks has been a successful independent HR consultant for 6 years, specialising in leadership development, performance management, cultural differences and change management.  Her client list includes: GE, Royal & Sun Alliance, Aljazeera, Louis Dreyfus, Astra Zeneca, and Genworth.  She is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

• Andrew Cosgrove is an alumni of the Fuld-Gilad-Herring Academy of Competitive Intelligence. Currently an independent consultant, Andrew has 12 years experience using CI to improve senior level decision making at Mars, Incorporated and McKinsey & Company in Europe, Asia and the U.S. He has an MBA from London Business School.

• Andrew Beurschgens is practitioner at Orange and one of the Committee Members of the recently formed SCIP UK Affiliate, the UK Competitive Intelligence Forum.  He is a recipient of the Catalyst Award for his volunteer services to the profession.

The event will be chaired by Sheila Wright, a Reader of Competitive Intelligence and Marketing Strategy at De Montfort University, Leicester.  She is by far one of the most qualified authorities on the discipline’s application reinforced by her past elected role on SCIP’s Board, her numerous articles and workshops on CI as well as front-line practitioner experience.

To register for the event, please click here. The event is priced at £20 for SCIP (Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals) members and £30 for non-members.

Aiming High

Author: David Thew
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Director, Publisher & Content Provider Recruitment

Since September 2009 the Information Provider recruitment team has seen a slow but steady rise in demand for senior and executive management positions, either as a result of clients’ new business initiatives or to reenergize existing divisions. September saw the placement of the new Head of Sales at a company financial data group, an assignment won against stiff competition, and December saw the placement of the new MD at a food industry information group, an executive search campaign won through competitive tender. 2010 started with the placement of the new Director of Knowledge at the publishing arm of a major global professional membership body, effectively a divisional MD position which was won in competition with a major executive search house. Forward placements include the Head of Academic Publishing at the same client, a divisional director-level remit driving the global online and offline publishing strategy for the group’s flagship database business, and February has begun with three new executive management positions for a new publishing joint venture in Qatar.

2009 was a mixed bag for the publishing and information provider markets and 2010 forecasts remain cautious for many, but those companies able to operate on a genuinely international basis are looking at growth potential in non-US and/or non-UK markets and aiming to reduce their dependence on these markets to mitigate the impact of cost-cutting in 2010 and beyond. This should continue to present opportunities for us in executive search and senior-level recruitment, so let’s hope we can go from strength to strength!

What makes a good competitive intelligence (CI) department?

An interesting session held at Orange HQ and led by Safi Ghauri, Global Business Intelligence Analyst at consumer goods firm Reckitt Benckiser. The event was attended by a range of CI vendors as well as Practitioners from a range of sectors covering financial services, FMCG, aerospace, pharmaceuticals. Media and IT.

Safi talked through his experiences and the building blocks to constructing a CI team within a global organisation, highlighting 4 key lessons.

• Company culture
• Highlighting the benefits of CI
• Keep CI processes simple
• Feedback

Company culture

Safi highlighted the fact that CI teams are more successful the closer they are to decision makers. Safi if CI is promoted from the top down, the programme will embed properly and thus benefit the whole firm.

Highlighting the benefits of CI

CI touches all part of the organisation, for example marketing, sales, sourcing, finance, strategy – there are techniques to address detailed competitive product/service issues, such as pricing and large vista challenges, such as innovation and the strategic moves of whole organisations. Above all, a central CI hub listens, and encourages individuals to share and benefit from information and perspectives a single person cannot possibly collect on their own. A CI hub only thrives if it is seen to be useful to all, so generosity and a good social network is vital in energising the power of a corporate team and culture.

Generosity of time; Simple, effective ways to get success: “Must give else never can receive” 

One thing that Safi mentioned within some organisations is “black hole syndrome” – feeling that you are contributing to CI but getting nothing in return. Simple and quick channels for corporate CI include tools such as a central repository may be on Intranet where people can email CI, a voicemail where people can message CI. People on a day to day basis are busy and don’t have time to fill in reams of forms that then need to be processed. Simple an effective ways to communicate are easier to build in to a routine, and don’t require over engineered, expensive solutions – just a perceptive person to recognise information as useful intelligence, a channel to someone who can evaluate it and someone to act upon it if necessary.

Feedback

Keeping people in the loop with outputs as well as regular updating of your knowledge networks will in the long run be more productive and help people be recognised for their contribution and feel that they are all contributing and benefiting from the CI team.

Safi’s presentation stimulated a lively discussion and it was interesting in listening to the audience talk about what they had been doing with their CI functions, what had been successful or not, especially with the number of industries represented in the room. This was a fun evening when even the most worldly CI professionals left with their enthusiasm refreshed. Safi’s enthusiasm is infectious.

Ivan Radulovic
Consultant

TFPL Intelligent Resources

SCIP Summit Europe November 2009: Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals

This conference is recommended attendance for people with an interest in applied intelligence and strategy:

The conference was more than just a shelter from the actual storm (the weather was awful) and the perfect virtual storm of the credit crunch. There was a feeling of tranquility, arising from the client-side (large-co Pharma and industrial clients in the main), who are budget constrained but sheltered from eye of the credit crunch (so far).

There was also a feeling of optimism – Intelligence professionals are clearly benefitting from clients having to look at companies and markets on a case-by-case basis

Sentiment shows a perceived lack of reliable information in context.  I don’t know how this happened, as the first keynote speaker – Stephane Garelli (Professor at IMD and the University of Lausanne) painted a bleak picture, although punctuated with a lot of laughter, about the length and shape of the recession and its children - taxation, scarcity and vested sovereign interests in competition globally. Prof Garelli’s economic weather forecast mapped out a difficult environment for business, with the race to serve the emerging markets consumer.

For practitioners worrying about today’s markets rather than tomorrow’s, the key theme was “How to make intelligence actionable and effective through empowering the whole enterprise”

I heard evidence of executive demand for more intelligence in an uncertain world, providing more opportunities for practitioners entrepreneurial enough to grab a good chance. The common goal for corporate practitioners is to be able to understand “the size of your client’s wallet and what share you can win”. But how many practitioner’s can actually answer that sort of question today, and with accuracy?

Overall, I arrived at the SCIP Summit expecting weak attendance but was pleasantly surprised by a strong showing – attendees numbered fewer than in a glut year, but all with a sense of purpose. 

There was a strong sense of camaraderie, even amongst competitors. Surely this is against nature for CI professionals, but it made for some strong interactive sessions, and gave the conference a constructive spirit – something which has been lacking in years where the numbers of attendees have been higher but the climate inside the conference colder. 

In a nutshell – worth battling for budget for, for 2010.        

 

 

Julia Hordle
Director of Corporate Intelligence

TFPL Intelligent Resources