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Today, the world is on an unsustainable path. Global temperatures have already risen by 1.1 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial baseline used for the Paris goals. The energy system urgently needs to decarbonize – however this also presents tremendous opportunity! In this episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we talk with bp’s Angela McKane about what this means for intelligence professionals, specifically:

• How to identify and make funding decisions on innovations that will drive the energy transition
• The technologies and practices bp uses to distribute intelligence to stakeholders and collaborate across the world
• How bp embraces diverse backgrounds and perspectives in its intelligence team to tackle "bet the company" strategic challenges 

As more competitors, sources, and key intelligence topics are added, it’s only a matter of time before competitive intelligence processes get jammed. Whether you work for a startup, a scaleup, or a well-established corporation, budgets are limited, team size is limited, time is even more limited. For an intelligence function to deliver maximum results with minimum effort, it has to have processes that are agile.

In this episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we sit down with Fouad Benyoub, Director of Competitive Strategy at Everbridge. Fouad shares recommendations for building a Lean Competitive Intelligence capability, taken from his all new book The Competitive Intelligence Playbook. We’ll address:

• How and when to build a Minimum Viable CI Program
• How to apply Design Thinking principles to CI processes & programs 
• What CI can leverage from the Lean toolkit (e.g. CI Kanbans) 
• The role of technology (e.g. automation, AI, etc.) in transforming CI processes 

Leaders need a reputable a source of truth on the external environment. Intelligence can play a key role in serving leaders with these actionable and objective external insights. In this special episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we talk live at IntelliCon with Target’s Robert Bunchek about the lessons he's learned building an intelligence capability that anticipates disruption and informs winning strategies in service of Target leaders. Robert shares:

• How intelligence is structured at Target, and how the team uses different forums to engage with leaders
• How Target cascades intelligence to different functions, balancing consistency with autonomy
• Their approach towards linking intelligence to strategy to implementation

Many organizations struggle to balance managing the core business with exploring white space opportunities.  Consequently, they tend to kill good ideas that don't fit the core, and see their competitive edge slowly decline. 

In this episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we talk with Tendayi Viki, award-winning author and corporate innovation expert about:
Innovation tools companies can use to design, test, and iterate white space ideas

• Common mistakes that lead to great ideas getting killed too soon
• Why Competitive Intelligence professionals need to monitor Disruption risk
• Good, Bad, and Ugly uses of the Business Model Canvas

Organizations are investing enormous sums on technology and skills to get value from Big Data. However, Big Data alone won’t help strategy development. Like anything, we have to be careful to separate the hype from the reality.

 In today’s episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we talk with Mark Chussil about: 

• Limits of Big Data - The difference between intelligence about competitors vs. intelligence about competing
• Benefits of Big Data for strategy development - Introducing algorithms and strategy simulations into War Games
• Man vs. Machine - How competitive strategy can incorporate data and algorithms to reduce the impact of bias and guesswork

Although strategy and competitive intelligence professionals use a variety of strategic frameworks to contextualize market data, in many organizations, internal transactional data is overlooked and underleveraged.  In this episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we talk with Randy Brown about: 

• Overcoming common challenges in growth strategy development - Recommendations on how CI can work across departments to overcome organizational (and skills) barriers around insights, strategy & execution 
• The value of your internal transaction data - How CI and marketing professionals can use account data already in your CRM to test strategic hypothesis, triangulate against external data you're already using, and identify hidden revenue opportunities
• 3 tools to apply to your transactional data  - How to use RFM (Recency Frequency Monetary Value Analysis),  GMM, and "Ketchup Mustard" analysis to identify hidden revenue and profit opportunities

To assess companies' performance and impact in a more holistic way,  Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) is an increasingly important lens through which to identify material risks and growth opportunities. In this episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we talk to Vanessa Barnett, who leads the global ESG program for FactSet, about: 

• What ESG is, why it matters, and where it's going
• The types of decisions in strategy and marketing that ESG is already impacting 
• How market & competitive intelligence professionals can get started incorporating ESG into their workflows
• How to understand ESG scores, and their impact on competitiveness

In this episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we talk with Rita McGrath,  best-selling author, sought-after speaker, and  longtime professor at Columbia Business School. Consistently named one of the world’s Top 10 management thinkers, Rita is the author of the best-selling books The End of Competitive Advantage, and Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen.  As a consultant to CEOs, her work has had a lasting impact on the strategy and growth programs of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. 

We talk with Rita about:

• How CI professionals can build a grass-roots movement, rather than waiting around for a "seat at the table"
• The concept of "continuous strategy" and the implications for CI professionals
• Warning signs that your organization's competitive advantage is waning
• A new way of tracking and responding to weak signals

In this episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we speak with the authors of the new book Gardens of Intelligence – Designing Robust Digital Market & Competitive Intelligence Platforms, Jesper Martell and Gabriel Anderbjörk.  While Gardens of Intelligence is a new-to-world approach, it's backed by decades of experience at successful global organizations like Ericsson. 

Our conversation with Jesper and Gabriel covers: 

• How companies can use Gardens of Intelligence to plan investments in people, technology, and information depending on their unique needs 
• The 3 components every organization needs for an Market & Competitive Intelligence department to consistently deliver value
• The role of artificial intelligence & machine learning in the intelligence cycle
• How organizations' information needs change as they advance
• The rise in importance of managerial skills for MCI professionals

As Gabriel says in this episode, "CI is growing into a management profession, far more than just an analytical profession."

Between the pandemic, social upheaval, and a volatile political climate, the last two years have seen an enormous amount of change, stress, and uncertainty.  Organizations that can sense and adapt to change will be rewarded with new types of competitive advantage. But Market & Competitive Intelligence professionals need to embrace new ways of thinking and working to help our organizations navigate through uncertainty.  

In this episode of SCIP IntelliCast, we talk with Peter Schwartz, Senior Vice President of Strategy & Chief Futurist for Salesforce about: 

• How can Scenario Planning help us navigate the Pandemic Era?
• Where do most organizations stumble when doing Scenario Planning? 
• How can organizations engage their entire workforce in thinking about the future, not just senior leadership? 
• How do you provide fresh perspectives to one of the best connected CEOs in the world? 
• Is remote work here to stay? What does that mean for businesses and consumers?
• What responsibility do businesses have to the various communities they're connected to?

About Peter: As Salesforce's Senior Vice President of Strategy and Chief Futurist, Peter Schwartz manages the organization’s ongoing strategic conversations around the world.  Prior to joining Salesforce, Peter was co-founder and chairman of Global Business Network. He’s also an author and his first book, The Art of the Long View, is considered a seminal publication on scenario planning.  Peter has served as a script consultant on the films "The Minority Report," "Deep Impact," "Sneakers," and "War Games."