intelligence solutions

Intelligence Solutions Through

the Use of Expert Tools
Avner Barnea, Ono Academic College, Israel

Since 2000, there have been intensive efforts in Israel • Prepare reports from the information gathered and
to expand the use of expert tools to support the objectives analyzed, and disseminate the information to internal
of Competitive Intelligence. I have touched upon this issue users through the Outlook system.
in two previous articles and in presentations as well (Barnea • Integrate with other internal Information Technology
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008). systems (mainly Business Intelligence) to create a better
As these efforts in Israel have grown, I have decided to “big picture.”
look at this issue through the eyes of those who have made • Support CI professionals to better manage the overall
use of these tools by focusing on firms that have purchased process, monitor KITs responses and other related tasks.
them and are utilizing them in their competitive intelligence
(CI) program. More than one dedicated CI tool has been
developed and offered to the Israeli market, but most were BASIC INFORMATION
not successful or have given up the CI practice and moved The level of success selling the system was much lower
to more profitable areas. I have specifically looked at the than anticipated. In all, about 250 Israeli large and medium
purchasers of one current tool, which I will refer to as Specific sized companies have active CI functions. Most of them,
Expert Tool (SET). however, are not using any CI expert tool. The SET firm
I have to confess that I’m a great believer in the use estimates that they have presented their system to 100
of expert tools to support CI activity and, as such, I have potential clients based in Israel. Approximately 60% of these
been promoting it in Israel and abroad as much as possible. presentations were initiated by the SET firm while only
I cannot imagine that CI will lag behind while the world 40% were requested by potential clients. (See Table 1 for the
moves forward by utilizing these types of tools for all kinds of number of systems installed.)
business activities. SET successfully introduced itself to most of the large
industries (see Table 2). Although it was a leader in this field,
the company experienced slow market growth and was unable
ABOUT THE RESEARCH SET to reach a significant market share and revenues in Israel.
The Specific Expert Tool purchased by the persons The plan to move to international markets was shelved as
interviewed in my study was developed in Israel at the end a result of insufficient resources.
of the 1990s to answer the needs of the local CI market. The As I reported in my 2006 paper on CI in Israel,
developers did not conduct thorough research before starting approximately 50% of the large Israeli exporters have active
to develop the SET, and many elements were added later to
match the requirements set by their clients. Table 1: Number of SET Systems
The main features of the SET were the capabilities to: Installed
Year Number of firms
• Gather information from the web, both automatically
and manually. 2000 2
• Receive information from primary sources mainly 2001 3
through the internal network.
• Index all the information received from both internal 2002 3
and external sources with sophisticated search and 2003 4
retrieval options. 2004 4
• Analyze primarily by adapting link analysis discipline
to CI requirements and creating dynamic mapping 2005 2
of information about the changes in the competitive 2006 2
theaters, competitors, suppliers and other influential 2007 1
factors in the competition. Text analysis capabilities were
also supported. Total 21

48 www.scip.org Competitive Intelligence

 intelligence solutions

of their views through the CI professionals who participated

Table 2: SET Systems Installed by in the survey. I also spoke with CI professionals of companies
Industries that did not purchase SET to hear their views.
Industry Number of firms
Telecom 4 Question 1. Who initiated acquiring the SET?
Food 2 Results (18):
Defense 2 CI professional (15)
Senior executive (2)
Pharma 2
Other (1)
Finance 1
Transportation 2 The purpose of this question was to find out who
initiated the process of exploring the opportunity of
Energy 2
acquiring the SET in each firm. The results show that it was
Advertising 2 usually purchased at the initiative of the CI unit. A follow-up
Medical devices 2 question revealed that senior executives were generally not
involved until the final stage of the acquisition despite the
Hi-Tech 2 efforts of their CI staff to involve them earlier. However, my
Total 21 impression was that the CI staff made insufficient efforts to
recruit the executives from the outset for fear that they would
not support the purchase process.
CI programs. In the total SET installed base of 21, 14
companies operated primarily in local markets and 7 in global Question 2. What were the main reasons for
markets. The above results clearly indicate that most Israeli purchasing the SET?
companies that have CI functions are not using any CI expert
tool. Results (18):
In Israel, a company with $30- 50 million in revenues General desire to improve CI capabilities (4)
is considered medium sized, and higher revenues makes it a CI professionals felt they needed better tools (10)
large company. In the SET installed base, five firms had $30- Unsatisfactory results from CI to meet executives’
50 million in sales, 16 with more than $50 million. SET is needs (4)
considered useful mainly for larger firms in the local market,
although we see there is also a demand among smaller firms. This question attempted to determine the main motives
CI units in Israel generally consist of a staff of one behind the decision to acquire the SET. A follow-up question
operating under considerable pressure to deliver results while found that it took quite a long time, in some cases up to six
working with a limited allocation of resources. In the SET months, to acquire internal approval for the purchase. The
installed base, 16 of the firms had only one CI professional, responses suggest that the reason for purchasing the SET
and only five had more than one. The small size of these CI product came primarily from the CI staff, who felt that they
units gave reason to believe that first class expert tools might be could perform better by using enhanced tools.
welcomed and would play a significant role in improving their
performance. As we can see, however, these expectations were Question 3. What was the overall satisfaction with CI
not met. “products” in the firm before installing SET?

Results(18) (1=lowest, 5=highest):

THE SCOPE OF THE RESEARCH
As shown above in Table 1, 21 SET systems were sold in
Israel between 2000 and 2007. Eighteen of the people in the
companies who purchased the system took an active part in
this research. Those who opted out of this research did so for
reasons that are not relevant to the study.
This research was conducted primarily through
personal interviews. During 2008, I met each of the CI
professionals in the 18 companies and discussed with them
the questionnaire outlined below. Senior executives involved
in the CI process were not directly interviewed, but I learned
Volume 12 • Number 4 • July/August 2009
Rating 3 (10)
Rating 4 (8)
This question was focused on discovering the level
of satisfaction with the CI from the point of view of the
executives as observed by the CI staff. It appears that the
CI directors were sensitive to the need to supply better
end products and felt that utilizing an expert tool would
allow them to deliver higher value reports to their internal
customers.
www.scip.org 49
intelligence solutions

Table 3: SET Contribution to CI work

Total 5 4 3 2 1
(Highest) (Lowest)

18 - - 3 5 10 Improved gathering process

18 - 5 8 5 - Improved analysis and final CI

28% 44% 28% products

18 - 3 15 - - Improved CI dissemination

18 8 10 - - - Improved KIT management

18 - 9 9 - - Improved CI efficiency

18 2 8 8 - - Improved CI reputation

Question 4. What was the overall satisfaction of CI
users 6 to 12 months after SET was installed?
Results(18) (1=lowest, 5=highest):
Rating 3 (8)
Rating 4 (9)
Rating 5 (1)
This question sought to discover whether the installation
and use of the SET expert tools changed the level of CI
response to the needs of their executives. Comparing the
results of questions number 3 and 4, it is apparent that
the level of satisfaction attributed to the CI products after
activating the SET is higher, but the change is not dramatic.
These results are consistent with my contention that SET and
programs similar to it are merely tools and CI has other issues
to address for better performance, which were not covered in
this survey.
units need tools that will help them to fulfill many missions
they run simultaneously.
The developers of the SET have admitted that the
strongest capability of the system was in the analysis, while
gathering was considered less effective. They felt that the
primary challenge of CI lies in the analysis and this is where
CI is expected to give meaningful added value. They took the
information gathered in this study and intend to improve the
system’s gathering capabilities.
Question 6. Has the SET fulfilled your initial
expectations?
Results (18):
Yes (16)
Moderately (2)
No (0)

Question 5. In your best judgment, how much did SET
contribute to your CI performance?
This question attempted to identify how SET has
contributed to CI from the point of view of the CI
professionals. The results indicate that the foremost
improvement was achieved in the analysis process, but the
satisfaction level with respect to the gathering performance of
the SET was low. Using the SET, the CI staff became more
effective when their perception was that their professional
reputation had improved. A further question revealed that
all respondents except one indicated that its lack of an early
warning system was significant. It must be emphasized that
the high score for improving KIT management shows that CI
This question attempted to find out the bottom-line
perspective of how satisfied the CI staff was with the SET.
The results show that the CI staff favored the SET, though
with some reservations, as indicated in the responses to
Question 5. The expectation that the SET would develop
into a more advanced tool was only partially met.
Question 7. What was the reason for deciding not to
purchase SET?
Results (12):
Lack of resources/too expensive (5)
Not important enough (5)

50 www.scip.org Competitive Intelligence


Did not meet our needs (1)
Have another solution (1)
This final question was asked of the twelve CI directors
of companies that ultimately decided not to buy the SET.
They had all seen presentations of the SET and had given
serious consideration to becoming equipped with this system.
It appears to me that there is a direct correlation between
the “lack of resources” and “not important enough” responses.
My perspective is that if the tool was found to be important
enough, they would have found the resources to buy the
system.
Conclusions
Since the mid-1990s, Israel has been recognized for its
outstanding software products in a wide range of industries
sold successfully worldwide. Expert tools for CI have also
acquired a strong reputation, as demonstrated by the recent
Fuld and Company software report.
My 2006 paper indicated that the picture regarding the
adoption of CI tools in Israel was more complicated than
originally thought. While CI has had slow but steady growth,
its support tools have suffered from a limited distribution.
The rapid growth of the software industry in Israel has
affected the development of specific CI solutions, but
unfortunately the demand has been lower than expected.
The SET product did not gain momentum or become
a conventional intelligence solution for the local CI market
needs. The gap between the high expectations of SET and its
low sales results was not only a great disappointment; it also
discouraged efforts to further develop this solution.
This focused study revealed that local firms were
not prepared to invest in new CI tools that would enable
CI professionals to perform better. As a result, most CI
professionals have to continue using generic tools like Office,
which offers unsatisfactory solutions to their CI program
needs.
My discussions with the companies revealed that many
executives did not support their CI staff members’ requests
to purchase SET, possibly as a result of not understanding CI
needs rather than a lack of resources. This has implications
for the vision of the potential value of CI.
This study shows that the high level CI solution has not
reached its potential target market due to a lack of support
by senior executives who did not see it as critical to move
CI forward in their firms. A technological solution cannot
become a standard in an industry without being recognized
as such by those who are making the decisions and allocating
the resources for this purpose.
Finally, while the SET was not the perfect solution, it
was a tool that improved CI performance in the companies
that implemented it. This observation provides additional
Volume 12 • Number 4 • July/August 2009
intelligence solutions
encouragement to continue presenting CI discipline, its
business value and needs in executive development programs
and academia, and to make education on this subject an
integral part of the activities of every CI director.
References
Barnea, Avner (2005). “Link analysis as a tool for competitive
intelligence.” Competitive Intelligence Magazine, V8/4 4
July-August.
Barnea, Avner (2006). “Israel study on competitive
intelligence.” Competitive Intelligence Magazine, V9/2,
March-April.
Barnea, Avner (2006). “Why start-up companies fail to adopt
CI.” Competitive Intelligence Magazine, V9/1, January-
February.
Barnea, Avner (2007). “Why is CI methodology still behind
CI technology tools?” Competitive Intelligence Magazine,
V10/3, May -June.
Fuld, Leonard (2008). Intelligence Software Report 2008-2009
http://www.fuld.com/Products/ISR2008/HomePage.
html
Avner Barnea is a former senior member of the Israeli
Intelligence Community. He holds a MA from the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem and graduated from the Top Executive
Program in Marketing Management from the Tel Aviv
University Graduate School of Business Administration. He is a
strategic consultant in the field of competitive intelligence and
business strategy in Israel and abroad. A lecturer on competitive
intelligence in the MBA program of the Ono Academic College,
Avner is also a guest lecturer on competitive intelligence at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Business School and in
various business executive training programs. He has extensive
experience in the integration of competitive intelligence systems
in Israeli corporations. Avner can be reached at: avnerpro@
netvision.net.il.
www.scip.org 51