Definition of rogue competitive intelligence and tips to address it
Rogue competitive intelligence
First, let's define rogue competitive intelligence and why it matters.
Rogue competitive intelligence is any competitive insights, resources, or support produced by anyone not part of the competitive intelligence team and circulated without the competitive intelligence team's validation and approval.
The problem with rogue competitive intelligence is that it is typically incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated.
Thus, competitive intelligence teams must handle rogue competitive intelligence, as it harms the organization by:
Putting CI users' credibility or deals at risk: By using incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated rogue competitive intelligence, CI users may say or do something wrong in front of customers, leadingto credibility or deal loss.
Confusing CI users: CI users may get contradictory guidance from the official and rogue competitive intelligence.
Discreting the official competitive intelligence team: People may think that the rogue competitive intelligence of questionable quality came from CI and hesitate to engage the CI team later.
5 steps to handle rogue competitive intelligence
If you think that rogue competitive intelligence does not circulate in your company, chances are that you just have not found it yet! Jay Nakagawa and I hosted a Klue webinar in 2023 and 88% of the polled attendees stated that there was rogue competitive intelligence in their company.
Worry not, as you can act before, during, and after rogue competitive intelligence occurs to mitigate the damages and actually turn it into a benefit for your organization.
1- Minimize risks of rogue competitive intelligence
Regularly promote your official competitive intelligence and remind your audience where to go and whom to contact when they need competitive resources and assistance.
Educate people on the risks of using rogue competitive intelligence. They can damage their credibility or the credibility of the organization.
Educate people on recognizing official competitive intelligence and identifying rogue competitive intelligence. For instance, stamp all your official resources with a CI team logo or host all your competitive intelligence on a single platform, like a Klue portal.
Promote an open-door policy by making it easy for people to contact you if they need something that you do not provide yet. So that you create it instead of forcing them to do it themselves.
2- Find rogue competitive intelligence
No matter how much you proactively do in step 1, assume that rogue competitive intelligence already circulates within your organization. Put people, systems, and processes in place to quickly discover it.
Incent people to bring rogue competitive intelligence to you, with financial rewards or the commitment to review that rogue competitive intelligence and integrate it into your official resources if it makes sense.
Configure tools to automatically scan your content platforms for potential rogue competitive intelligence. For instance, script a workflow to automatically scan your organization file libraries for documents with keywords like your competitor names every week.
Regularly ask your competitive intelligence users if they have created any resources for you to review and reuse. Start with Sales and Technical Sales teams, as in our webinar, competitive intelligence practitioners stated that 76% of rogue competitive intelligence came from these teams. Product Management may create its own competitive intelligence too.
3- Eliminate rogue competitive intelligence
Once you have located rogue competitive intelligence, you must remove it and redirect people to your official competitive resources.
First, identify the rogue competitive intelligence creators and ask them why they created it to understand what you need to do. For instance, they might not have known they could come to you, then promote your CI team more regularly or differently. Maybe they did not like your content format, then redesign it if you get that feedback enough times.
Then explain the risks of rogue competitive intelligence for the organization to them and have them remove the rogue content or remove it yourself with their approval.
Never reprimand or punish people for creating rogue competitive intelligence. Turn them into contributors instead!
4- Recruit rogue competitive intelligence creators
Talking with creators of rogue competitive intelligence is an opportunity to create a community of competitive intelligence contributors. Use them to crowd-source your content!
Make it easy for them to contribute to your official competitive intelligence by providing them with sources of information to research, guidance on how to research competition (e.g., cross-checking facts across 3 sources), and templates to document their findings.
Make it easy for you to review their contributions by using templates and asking them to substantiate each statement with a link to their source.
Motivate and reward contributors. For instance, gamify contributions with a point system and several levels of financial and social rewards. It is always simple yet rewarding to acknowledge contributors in your company-wide communications).
5- Prevent rogue competitive intelligence from reoccurring
Preventing rogue competitive intelligence from harming your organization is not a task that you complete only once when you launch your competitive function and forget afterward. It is a continuous process.
Make sure to communicate and search for rogue competitive intelligence at least quarterly.
Go back to past rogue competitive intelligence creators to see if you have implemented the changes required so that they no longer feel the need to create their own content.
You can also get function leaders to repeat your policy on rogue competitive intelligence to their teams to amplify your message.
Calls to action
Watch our recorded Klue Compete Week webinar 2023 on rogue competitive intelligence to hear Jay Nakagawa and me talk more about it.
Start looking for rogue competitive intelligence within your organization!
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