“It’s really tough to find out what our competition is doing. They will roll a program out that I know takes, maybe, a year to develop. And, hell, it’s been out on the street for three months before I even hear about it. How can I do a better job of keeping up?” Bud shook his head. He still had plenty of spunk, but he was temporarily demoralized.

“Bud, first of all, if you try to do it alone, you will not only fail, but you will drive yourself crazy. As the business expert Jimmy John Shark says, one set of eyes and ears cannot keep track of everything that is going on in your market. You have to recruit your other team members, perhaps some vendors, maybe even a customer or two.”

“But, I already ask around. Nobody ever seems to know anything,” Bud was getting defensive.

“Look, Bud. Is this important to you, your company, to remain competitive?” I knew the answer, so I kept going. “Create a Business Intelligence meeting. All you need to know is out there, in the media, on the radio, in rumor mills and in formal conversation. Make some assignments. Have Joe read the Wall St. Journal. Have Fred read BusinessWeek. Have Joan report on your two key vendors supplying you with raw material. Then have that meeting every two weeks for half an hour. Get everyone to summarize what they have learned in an email and send it to a central person for compilation so you can read it looking for patterns. A Business Intelligence Briefing, just like the President.” -TF