In the previous post “Companies compete in arenas, not in sectors of industry” we explained how crucial it is to go beyond an industry analysis towards analyses of arenas. This means it is no longer enough to look at the industry sector in which your company competes. A further step Is required, namely conducting an analysis of the ‘competitive arena’.
In the previous post “How do we manage disruption?” we described how Nokia’s market position in 2010 was compared with a blazing oil platform leaving employees the choice of either jumping into the water even it was 100 meters deep and freezing cold, or staying on the rig and getting burned. In 1996, Intel’s Andy Grove of Intel published “Only the Paranoid Survive”.
“The more threatening externalities become for a company, the more there is a need to have strategic intelligence in place. Every company faces a continuous flow of threatening externalities”This statement is clear to everybody. But to foresee those threatening externalities, companies need to be able to monitor them in a timely fashion. A couple of years ago, I gave presentations about the “Management of Insights” and the “Management of Foresight” at the Dutch National Marketing Insights Event.