Strategic intelligence — an explanation of the term

Like the term strategy itself, the term “strategic intelligence” can also be traced back to ancient military systems. As early as 2,500 years ago, the Chinese general, strategist and philosopher Sun Tzu described in his classic work “The Art of War” the particular importance of “(pre) knowledge” for successful warfare with the famous words:

“What enables the wise ruler and the experienced military leader to achieve victories and achieve things that are beyond the imagination of the masses is foresight. ”

In the corporate world, strategic intelligence has been used in a more or less formalized form since the 1980s. In recent years, science has also increasingly focused on the topic (Johannesson & Palona, 2010; Xu & Kaye, 2007; Liebowitz, 2006; Lonnqvist & Pirttimaki, 2006; April & Bessa, 2006; and others). However, there is still no uniform definition of the term. The Babylonian confusion is also reinforced by the fact that strategic intelligence is often used synonymously with other terms such as business intelligence, competitive intelligence and market intelligence, and that European and American language usage also differ from one another.

Xu (2007) provides a very catchy definition: “Strategic intelligence is about having the right information in the hands of the right people at the right time so that those people are able to make informed business decisions about the future of the business.” Looking more closely, Strategic Intelligence has the following characteristics:

• The primary goal of Strategic Intelligence is to support and improve strategic decision-making in the company by providing relevant strategic information.
  
• Strategic intelligence is future-oriented. It enables companies to make well-founded decisions regarding future conditions in their respective market or industry.
  
• Strategic intelligence provides information about the entire internal and external business environment. In this way, it helps companies to arrive at a realistic assessment of potential changes, opportunities and risks in the corporate environment as well as their own strengths and weaknesses and to adapt their strategy to the respective circumstances in the best possible way.
  
• Strategic intelligence performs an early warning function by helping companies identify evolving trends and patterns early on and react accordingly. Trends and effective changes in the corporate environment are often announced by so-called “weak signals”, which are only available in qualitative form and must first be linked together in order to be correctly interpreted. The collection and analysis of soft, qualitative data is therefore particularly important in the context of strategic intelligence.
  
• The 360-degree view of Strategic Intelligence helps to question long-standing assumptions and views of management and to identify and eliminate so-called “blind spots.” According to Porter (1980), blind spots are factors that a company either does not notice at all, misinterprets, underestimates their importance or is slow to perceive. This can have a negative impact on the quality of strategic decisions and the agility of the company.
  
• Strategic intelligence is a systematic and continuous process. The intelligence cycle can generally be divided into the following stages:
  1) Identification of information requirements, definition of requirements and planning the procedure
  2) Collection, processing and storage of raw data and information
  3) Filtering and analyzing the collected raw data and information with regard to trends and patterns and supplementing it with own assessments and interpretations; in this step, information is transformed into knowledge
  4) Presentation and dissemination of the knowledge gained to the respective addressees and
  5) Evaluation, control and, if necessary, adjustment of the process based on feedback from the addressees.
  
• Strategic Intelligence provides actionable insights into the business environment and instructions for action in the form of reports.
  
• Strategic intelligence primarily addresses the information needs of managers who are involved in strategic decision-making processes.
  
• Strategic intelligence is a legally valid and ethically justifiable business practice and should never be confused with industrial espionage. Only legally accessible information is collected and evaluated.
  
• Strategic intelligence is based on the use of specialized software, which enables effective and efficient use and dissemination of strategically relevant information to selected addressees.
  
• Last but not least, Strategic Intelligence represents a competitive advantage, as it allows companies to react earlier than the competition to emerging developments in the corporate environment.

In short: Strategic intelligence is a systematic, continuous and IT-based process for collecting, analyzing and disseminating legally accessible, strategically relevant information about the internal and external business environment. By doing so, to help strategy managers make more informed decisions about the future strategic direction of the company, to question long-held assumptions and to be able to identify and utilize emerging growth opportunities faster and better.

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sources

April, K., & Bessa, J. (2006). A critique of the strategic competitive intelligence process within a global energy multinational. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 4(2), 86-99.

Johannesson, J., & Palona, I. (2010). Environmental Turbulence and the Success of a Firm's Intelligence Strategy: Development of Research Instruments. IInternational Journal of Management, 27 (3), part 1.

Liebowitz, J. (2006). Strategic Intelligence: Business Intelligence, Competitive Intelligence, and Knowledge Management. Boca Raton: Auerbach Publications.

Lönnqvist, A. & Pirttimäki, V. (2006, winter). The measurement of business intelligence. Information Systems Management Journal, 32-40.

Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors. New York: Free Press.

Xu, M., & Kaye, G.R. (2010). An integrative framework for strategic intelligence. International Journal of Strategic Information Technology and Applications, 1(4), 1-18.

Xu, M. (2007). Managing Strategic Intelligence: Techniques and Technologies. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.