Business Intelligence: The Effectiveness of Strategic Intelligence and its Impact on the Performance of Organizations

Effective Strategic Intelligence (SI) is vital for organizations in an international context of instability, complexity and intense competition. Following a long process of qualitative, quantitative and empirical research next to SI experts and large companies, this book proposes a way to improve SI and its impact on the performance of an organization. From an exploration, description and evaluation model of SI, a measurement tool in two parts, for the producer and the user of SI, has been built. For all kind of firms and all advancement levels of SI, it allows the construction of a control panel which can be used to pilot SI and its impact on the performance of an organization.

Table of Contents:
Introduction xi Chapter 1. Scanning the Environment: A Vital Necessity for Companies 1 1.1. Getting informed: a very well-established and necessary requirement 1 1.2. The corporation and its environment 6 1.3. Innovation and Japan 11 1.4. Conclusion 28 Chapter 2. Evolution of the General Concept of Surveillance 31 2.1. The emergence phase 32 2.2. Phase of development38 2.3. Phase of consolidation 47 2.4. Conclusion 50 Chapter 3. The Global Measurement Model of Strategic Intelligence 55 3.1. Overview of the literature on SI effectiveness evaluation 55 3.2. Intelligence and performance 59 3.3. Definition of corporate performance and surveillance effectiveness 64 3.4. The definition of the concept of measurement 65 3.5. A measurement model for surveillance effectiveness 67 3.6. The importance of total quality management (TQM) 74 3.7. The measurement of corporate performance 77 3.8. Conclusion 89 Chapter 4. Objectives, Products, Use and Context of Strategic Intelligence 91 4.1. Functions of surveillance 92 4.2. Objectives of intelligence 96 4.3. SWI product and services 105 4.4. SI uses 111 4.5. Context of surveillance 114 Chapter 5. Evaluation of the Organizational Resources of SI 119 5.1. Formalization of the watch and SI activity 120 5.2. Seniority of the SWI function 123 5.3. Centralization, decentralization and the number of SWI points 124 5.4. The hierarchical connection 129 5.5. Network organization 132 Chapter 6. Evaluation of the SI Process 141 6.1. Phase 1: the determination of information needs 143 6.2. Phase 2: information research and collection 148 6.3. Phase 3: information processing 160 6.4. Phases 2 and 3 bis: storage 174 6.5. Phase 4: distribution 178 6.6. Phase 5: information use 182 6.7. Feedback 182 6.8. Control 183 Chapter 7. Evaluation of Human, Technical and Financial Resources of SI 185 7.1. Human methods 185 7.2. Technical methods 193 7.3. Financial resources 200 7.4. Conclusion 202 Chapter 8. SI Measurement Tools for SI Managers 205 8.1. Organizational methods 208 8.2. Resources for the intelligence process 218 8.3. Human methods 236 8.4. Technical methods 241 8.5. Financial methods 243 8.6. The SI context 244 Chapter 9. Measurement Tools for SI Users 249 9.1. SI product and services 249 9.2. Using SI 254 9.3. SI results: the intelligence–performance control panel 257 9.4. Conclusion 271 Conclusion 273 Bibliography 275 Index 287