Field Champions

Competitive intelligence always focuses on research techniques of the intelligence practice–the analysis techniques. We focus on techniques like strength, threat, win/loss analysis, feature, or financial forensic analysis. One of the less discussed aspects is how to make a CI organization operational. How to bring that operation to an entire company. It is not a single CI practitioner or CI team that is practicing the intelligence function. Ed promotes that CI needs to be organization-wide. To do this, you need to have direct or indirect teams.

The issue of scalability

The issue of scalability has been an ongoing point of discussion throughout analysis daily. If a product manager has ten products that they’re managing, each of those ten products has ten competitors. Who each in turn have their own range of products. PM is now responsible for knowing them all.

Field champions serve a range of purposes, and can be incredibly valuable to an organization. Their purpose is to provide feedback on direction and deliverables, as well as a degree of sponsorship the CI team. A typical expectation of this type of team would be providing feedback. Maybe delivered in monthly or quarterly meetings? Field champions bring back the “voice of the field” to the organization. Now the overall team can be more informed. In a sense, they are a liaison to the CI team, or “friendly fire” from the field.

Where would we look for a Field Champ in our organizational levels?

A Level 1 organization is establishing a team, and might have part-time analysts. A Level 2 organization is building their team, and is starting to implement virtual teams. This is where a field champion comes in. This is an investment that an organization can make into building their effectiveness and deliverables.

Your field champion is an important part of an effective team. Field Champ’s provide essential feedback and insight’s that will help your strategies to evolve in today’s markets.