Business Blindspots, 2nd edition
replacing myths, beliefs and assumptions with market realities
Benjamin Gilad
Ben Gilad's book is for senior managers, and for all those
with a direct interest in corporate information and in CI, the
organisation and practice of competitive intelligence. Business
Blindspots, the underlying cause of competitive sclerosis, fall
into three broad categories: unchallenged assumptions, corporate
myths and corporate taboos. The three are examined and illustrated
by Professor Gilad in his usual hard-hitting, direct style. And
along the way we are treated to an unrivalled display of analysis
and wisdom.
The first edition of this book sold out within two years and
became a cult book. Its major concept, eradicating competitive
blinders that hamper the performance of executives and their companies,
through the use of a sophisticated competitive intelligence process,
put Professor Gilad in the forefront of managerial thinking in
America. The description of the principles of building a competitive
intelligence function that actually saves companies from disasters
is based on Gilad's consulting practice and actual success stories.
This second edition includes new insights by Ben Gilad, based
on his travels in the past few years, and his meetings with CEOs
of major corporations.
Ben Gilad worries about the central and vital role that intelligence
should have in a corporation. He illustrates throughout the book
what happens when intelligence is neglected and blindspots are
allowed to persist, and what happens when corporate leaders either
do not know what is happening, or choose to overlook vital facts.
Above all, Gilad concentrates on the human side of intelligent
corporations, maintaining that the major weaknesses in corporations
cannot be solved simply by hardware and software, but by the application
of human-led systems and structures.
In over two hundred pages, Gilad imparts wisdom, humour, common
sense, practicality and the message that in today's global, fast-moving,
competitive environment, firms have both to pay attention to what
is happening in their operational environments, and develop mechanisms
and structures to ensure that the people who take the decisions
receive the early intelligence.
Book ordering information
Sample
chapter
- Gilad on Cardinal Richelieu
Richelieu, without hardware, and with pigeons as communication
technology, could teach our generation of techies a lesson or
two about strategic information and keeping close to the market.
If there is no money for a trip to inspect a competitor's plant,
or travel to an association's meeting, or for retired employees
to make some phone calls for you to find out about an interesting
development ... or for a competitive war game ... Then all the
information technology in the world will not produce competitive
intelligence for your company.
- Gilad on the banking industry CI capabilities
Bank executives are typically hard pressed to come up with strategic
understanding of the industries they lend to, or for that matter,
understanding the meaning and value of strategic intelligence
... (T)ry not to work for banks which still don't understand
that they, of all companies, need the best strategic learning
process money can buy. Oops, sorry, did I catch you on your way
to your local S&L?
- Gilad on the pharmaceutical industry
Sheltered from tough competitive pressures for many years, the
operating presidents never felt the need to rely on competitive
intelligence to support their judgment calls. The typical attitude
had been that competitive intelligence was good mainly for the
middle managers and salespeople ... Just watch what had happened
to Merck.
- Gilad on acquisitions
Every time one reads about mergers and acquisitions where "the
corporate cultures did not mesh", one is in essence reading
about another sloppy operation.
- Gilad on executive confidence
I am sometimes asked by top executives for examples of information
that a process can provide that they cannot get themselves. I
tell them: Let me gather a few experts in one room for two hours
and see who knows more, you or the collective them. I even venture
to select the experts at random by shooting darts at the organisational
chart.
- Gilad on adopting a Japanese approach
The intelligence process ... place is in the 'office of the president',
a concept borrowed from Japanese companies. This Japanese import
does not require callisthenics in the morning or abolishing reserved
parking for executives.
- Gilad on executives and intelligence
For whatever reason, from cost-consciousness to a distorted image
of 'lean and mean', to a feeling of 'we have enough information',
top executives regard line staffing as wholesome, and strategic
staffing as wasteful overhead. Almost universally, they react
favourably to a suggestion to strengthen the intelligence support
for their subordinates. Yet the effect of better intelligence
at these levels is minuscule compared to the effect of bad intelligence
at the top.
- Gilad on cosy relationships with suppliers
Relationships with suppliers are often subject to sclerosis –
no one questioning, no one breaking china. If the supplier is
large and might even place an executive on the client's board,
the blindspot is stuck in cement. Cross-functional teams collecting
competitive intelligence, doing competitive deciphering on suppliers?
Not here, baby. Our accounting vendor is fine. The vice president
of finance, who used to he a partner there, told us so himself.
- Gilad on the big consulting firms
Intelligence advisers who are tempted to give strategic advice
should remember the following: The reason so many large American
corporations have fallen from grace over the past two decades
was not lack of strategic advice. Strategic advice was available,
and supplied, in large quantities by the prestigious consulting
firms (for hefty sums but few results).
- Gilad on intelligence overheads
: At the intelligence-process' heart is one manager, one telephone
and a PC. The rest is nice.
- Gilad on intelligence location
Companies that place their intelligence operations in a planning
department rather than next to the CEO or president will see
benefits as unattainable as are the Niagara Falls to a thirsty
man in the Sahara.
- Gilad on databases
The intelligence process is politically neutral. It simply presents
a picture of reality obtained primarily from networks of human
sources who identify and decipher early signals. The emphasis
on human networks and human intelligence (HUMINT) is one lesson
from Japan: The speed of information passing through a human
network, as well as its richness, is crucial to the competitiveness
of Japanese firms. Databases and publications are good for academics
who can wait for the information to be obsolete.
- Gilad on CI
Competitive intelligence is deciphered early signals from the
market that tell top management if the organisation is, or is
not, still competitive.
- Gilad on early signals
Most executives are too busy, too insulated and too involved
in their own strategic concepts to identify early signals regarding
change. They receive their information when the signals are strong
enough and late enough to have been identified by security analysts
or newspaper reporters. No competitive advantage can result from
identifying loud signals.
- Gilad on the route to the top
What is the most common complaint of competitive intelligence
professionals in the business world? They do not know what top
management needs in terms of competitive input. The most common
reason intelligence budgets are cut and personnel dispersed and
the 'process' is considered a flop is that division heads do
not receive any meaningful benefit from it. A significant reason
is that the vast majority of these functions in Western corporations
are several steps removed from top management. Mary in Room 238A
on the left does not typically have breakfast with the president.
That would never be remedied by periodic questionnaires or interviews
in which intelligence experts ask top management to share its
concerns.
- Gilad on travel
Reading about the way a Japanese corporation sends teams of its
employees to gather information at trade shows, and how its engineers
take every opportunity for plant tours, and how its executives
may spend months travelling in a foreign country collecting information,
and how its representatives will be placed in undeveloped markets
years before the actual market penetration takes place, one realises
how backward we are in giving our employees opportunities to
form networks of information sources.
- Gilad on training
How do you turn a self-centred cadre of managers and employees
into fighting marines? The answer is education and training.
Boring answer. Long-term investment. Unmeasurable results. Costly.
Anyone interested?
- Gilad on power
Information privilege is one of the most coveted privileges of
becoming a senior executive. The price a company pays is so high
though, that executives should take a serious look at changing
their assumptions on this issue. It causes all the information
bottlenecks and feelings of powerlessness and loss of involvement
and cynicism and lack of trust – and I can continue with
many more typical corporate malaise – often ascribed to
ambiguous 'culture'.
- Gilad on information sharing
It is amazing how little information American companies share
with their employees. The phenomenon often borders on paranoia.
The explanations given for the fact that the overwhelming majority
of managers and employees don't have the slightest idea of their
own company's strategy, expected strategic moves, detailed performance,
or strategic concerns range from security issues (completely
misplaced) to a paternalistic attitude that "they don't
need to know" (completely wrong) to "it is not practical"
(completely outdated).
- Gilad on human intelligence
The problem with technology is that too many intelligence professionals,
or more typically their bosses, confuse it with intelligence
capability. Competitive intelligence is a people process.
- Gilad on operations
Good intelligence networks are always simple, basic, people-oriented.
They require the understanding of human nature and the ability
to persuade people and to listen to people. The more complex
the process becomes, the less beneficial it will be. Save the
money to help your internal sources gain better access to external
information (such as sending them on as many trips and to as
many conferences and trade shows as humanly feasible) and to
hire outside sources of knowledge. This is where you should never
count your change.
- Gilad on ethics
Rarely have I encountered more hypocrisy than in discussions
of the legality and ethics of competitive intelligence. Companies
that don't mind sending defective or low-quality products to
market, executives who will abandon you in a minute when political
troubles appear on the horizon, and managers who will fix the
blame on everyone around, will all rise to question the ethics
of collecting competitive information.
- Gilad on strategic intelligence at
Samsung
Any way you look at it, this is a brilliant piece of intelligence
work. Most [American executives] have neither the people nor
an organisational process that can deliver such an intelligence
analysis ... the intelligence flow (in a Western firm) circles
the organisation, away from the busy life of the top brass, like
an undercurrent of low voltage electricity, waiting to be amplified
to strategic intelligence, and instead being dumped into the
black hole of the internal paper shuffle
Book ordering information
Sample
chapter
Benjamin Gilad
Benjamin Gilad was elected 'man of the year' in 1996 by the
Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals (The Meritorious
Award) for his influence on the development of competitive intelligence
in the western world. He is a former Israeli intelligence officer
turned management professor who shares his time between America
and Israel. Fortune magazine selected him to lead its first CEO
seminar on competitive intelligence for its Fortune 500 and Fortune
Global 500 forums. The American Management Association selected
his seminar for its Presidents' Forum, and Business Week chose
him to lead its executive briefing on the subject. Ben Gilad is
considered currently to be one of the most talented and provocative
management speakers, and many other organisations from around
the globe have asked him to teach managers about the right use
of intelligence. He has designed and implemented intelligence
functions in several of the leading American firms that are considered
among the most effective units in the West.
Ben Gilad is the founder and President of the Academy of Competitive
Intelligence, a first-of-its-kind institution that trains managers
in competitive intelligence. He is the author of the definitive
text in competitive intelligence, The Business Intelligence System
(AMACOM, 1988), and the co-editor of The Art and Science of Business
Intelligence Analysis (JAI Press, 1996). His articles on the subject
have appeared in all major business periodicals.
Contents
ISBN 1-873699-33-6. 270 pages. Published 1996 by Infonortics,
Tetbury, England
The PDF (downloadable) version is 172 pp plus 15 pp.
(187 pp).
Book ordering information
Return to 
15 Market Place, Tetbury, Glos. GL8 8DD, UK
telephone: +44 1666 505 772
