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Perhaps the greatest application for tactical intelligence is to support the salesforce, marketing and business unit activities of the company, since both functions are uniquely tied to the shorter-term goals of capturing marketshare and beating competitors on a day-to-day basis.
The CI team needs to consider certain characteristics of sales and business unit personnel that will make it necessary to package the intelligence product differently as well as respond to needs and gather feedback in new ways. In our class, we will examine some successful cases in sales and business unit support from the CI function, and alert you to beware of potential pitfalls and differences from the rest of the enterprise.
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Unit One: Overview of CI for Sales and Marketing Support - examining the ways in which the world's most fearsome competitors use CI to expand the salesbase and enhance the effectiveness of the sales and marketing functions. In this introductory unit, we'll look at some of the leading global competitors who make tactical and strategic sales and marketing decisions based on actionable intelligence and examine how such firms as Amazon.com, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, General Electric, Buckman Labs, and many more medium-sized manufacturers and smaller, startup companies use CI to gain competitive advantage to drive customer and marketshare acquisition and grow profitably.
Unit Two: CI Systems for Sales and Marketing - key issues and workflow for the sharing and application of Competitive Intelligence by Sales and Marketing personnel. We'll look at the systems in place, both formal and informal, that company personnel use for gathering, storing and disseminating CI from the field to their colleagues and compare and contrast these techniques with best-of-breed applications structure used by global market leaders.
Unit Three: Sales and Marketing Intelligence Applications - how sales and marketing professionals use Competitive Intelligence to win over new prospects, structure marketing campaigns and protect existing clientele. This unit looks at the proven techniques for applying knowledge of one's competitors to compare and contrast the options for clients and use these tactical applications to win bids, market to new prospective customers and make your existing customers more loyal.
Unit Four: Strategic Connections - linking CI to the strategic sales and marketing goals of the business. Here we examine the shift between the tactical, day-to-day operational approach to Competitive Intelligence and show how other firms use and have used sales and marketing intelligence for longer-term strategic purposes like new product launches, market expansion, marketshare acquisition, product development and product management, merger and acquisitions candidate analysis, joint venture partnerships and marketing/production alliance-building. We will also look at other threat concerns like competitive counterintelligence and information security.