Abstract
The ability of a company to use a set of strategically thought out concepts and tactics to support and improve business decisions making is what constitutes business intelligence. By well-thought-out concepts we mean fact-based or information and not merely the use of intuition to impulsive reactions to making decisions. It is important to note that in today’s competitive business world where the rule ‘grow or be eaten rule’ is the order of the day, then capturing the right information at the right time and accurately goes a long way toward helping managers and proprietors to make key decisions properly which may, in turn, determine the future direction of the business.
The importance of harnessing this critical concept and indeed applying it in the business decision cannot be over-emphasized. Perhaps to better demonstrate a clear account of the business intelligence, this paper will discuss a specific situation that a company may face in light of the critical intelligence needs regarding its competitors and other stakeholders. It will analyze the situation and account for how business intelligence can influence the decision-making process regarding the situation and finally depict the added value delivered by competitive intelligence or counter-intelligence. The company that I choose to focus on is Procter and gamble and the situation is launching a new product (vanilla and chocolate flavored toothpaste) into the new market.
Introduction
It is to discern what business intelligence is just to get a picture of where we are coming from. According to the data warehousing institute, a provider of education and training in the business intelligence industry, Business intelligence refers to the process, tools, and techniques employed by a company to convert data into information, information into knowledge, knowledge into action plans which ultimately lead the company to make a decision that drives the company to profitable scales. (Loshin, 6).
Given that clear definition, Procter and Gamble have been in existence for decades now yet its products continue to touch and improve the lives of its consumers. The secret behind this evergreen company is its innovations and improvements to the company’s products. This is done by repositioning the products to new markets as soon as they reach the maturity stage or adding new features to their household brand names to give them a new lease of life. That said and eschewing the danger of sounding like a marketer on a mission, the situation is this. Procter and Gamble are looking forward to launching a new kind of flavored toothpaste, that is, vanilla-flavored toothpaste and chocolate-flavored toothpaste. This decision follows the market research findings which indicated the crest mint toothpaste was facing stiff competition from its rivals Colgate, Aqua fresh, Close up, Sensodyne among others. Close up has already produced the strawberry and orange flavors and Procter and gamble feel that they should adopt a ‘me too’ strategy to survive the competition in the oral hygiene brand market. The new vanilla-flavored and chocolate-flavored toothpaste will have better features such as tooth whitening compounds and lip softening properties to cater to the people who experience and cracked lips after brushing with other ordinary toothpaste. The main feature of the toothpaste is its distinct flavor which is guaranteed to leave the consumers wanting to brush their teeth again and again. The folks from the research and development (R&D) and marketing departments are optimistic that the new products will be a success in the market. Nonetheless, the management of the company must conduct an intensive survey and analysis of the data and information about the market and the competitors more so that it can leverage itself for competitive advantage. Given, the success of the new product to be well diffused into the market after its launch will depend greatly on how Procter and Gamble utilize the knowledge resource towards this end.
The crucial intelligence needs
First of all, it is important for Procter and Gamble first understand all the information tabled by the stakeholders, in this case, the production, R&D, marketing, and logistics departments. Given, this information is numerous yet not all of it will be relevant to the successful launch of the new vanilla and chocolate-flavored toothpaste. That said Procter and Gamble will need some mechanism, tools, and systems of accessing the data to convert data into information and knowledge. Perhaps, references to a recent development made by the company will facilitate this. This process of processing the data collected will be crucial in piecing together the real picture of the situation about fundamental information about the suppliers, distributors, customers, and the internal organization. The main idea behind this is to get facts on what is needed today and in days to come and indeed its significance to the pending decision. While this may seem like a labored task for all involved in decision-making regarding the launch of the new product, the results will make the affair worthwhile. For one, decision-makers organize and analyze data into meaningful constructs. Additionally, its business intelligence system will help the decision-makers to project the future of the business based on the previous records.
Creative agility on the part of Procter and Gamble will be critical to the launch of the new product and this includes creativity in promotion and advertising, reaching the target consumers, packaging, outwitting the competitors, and so on. These actions will require the decision-makers to decide which road to take. In this case, all the data provided will need to be turned into information in regards to facilitating these key decisions. Notably, the decision-making act is in itself a process that takes up considerable time. In between this time, there will be flashes of insight influencing one to more with the certain decision and not the other which at times will be the correct one although at times it may also be another terrible mistake. Thus when deliberating on the decision pending there will be numerous others collected too, while others are done away with. For example, the management at Procter and Gamble may decide to first launch a pilot marketing in one state say Chicago before launching a full-blown marketing program. On the contrary, they may decide to launch the toothpaste for the young consumer and see how it performs before marketing the product to other market segments. All these decisions seem sound and viable yet for business intelligence to prevail, a critical analysis of the pro and cons of each business decision will be employed on each so that the list narrowed down to the most appropriate and profitable decisions which in turn will be used to draw the action plan. (Dutka, 2).
According to creative expert Edward de Bono, managers and chief executives today are not creative enough in meeting the demands and challenges of the ever-changing and reshaping the business world today and in the future. Yet, creativity is a crucial strength that gives companies a competitive advantage (Thierauf, 35). In this information age, access to information via the internet and is almost as if the same information is accessed by millions of other business enterprises. Thus, it is up to a company to use that very information and tilt it in such a way that it sets the pace for others in the industry. This will be creativity and business intelligence. Back to the situation of Procter and Gamble in launching the vanilla and chocolate flavored toothpaste, the strategies employed will need to have creativity orientation in consideration of what the competitors are doing and what the company can do to outshine them and thus grab the potential consumers. There are several guiding questions that the decision-makers at Procter and Gamble will employ in reaching creative actions plans. For instance, how well does the company carry out new ideas that the company’s employees generate? What are the company’s key strengths and weaknesses? What can we learn from previous launches and so on? (www.knowthis.com ) Generally, this is commonly known as the SWOT analysis, an essential analysis that contributes to business intelligence and creativity.
Procter and Gamble’s intentions to launch the new toothpaste into the market will require tactical intelligence in its marketing efforts. This means a focus on the company’s customers and the product in question sets the pace for the application of business intelligence in marketing the new products. For the most effective marketing launch of the new toothpaste, the decision-makers at Procter and Gamble will need to decide on ways in which improved products and services, quicker product delivery customer satisfaction, and relationships with customers among others will be improved or enhanced. In this case, these decisions will indirectly/directly affect the costs of market research and development and distributive costs. For Procter and Gamble to be successful in its plans will be required to harness the ability to gather analyze and distribute market intelligence to its staff to have a competitive edge (Thierauf, 233). Procter and gamble will need to transform its customers into great customers and contacts into customers. Some aspects of customer analytics that will contribute to business intelligence in launching the product include customer profiling, target marketing, personalization, collaborative filtering, customer satisfaction, loyalty, and metrics of gauging customer profitability. (Loshin, 18-19).
Procter and gamble will have to keep an eye on the competitor’s moves and records. For instance, whether the competitor is giving discounts or free samples on his products, the trend of buying and reasons behind customers purchase and so on. It is not enough for a company to rest assured that a discounted price is the ultimate factor that determines the diffusion of a product into the market. Actions such as financial analysis of implications of a price decrease on sales volumes, analysis of the competitor’s production capacity, analysis of the competitor’s core clients, reasons behind a competitor’s increased market share among others will account for Procter and gamble’s competitive intelligence. (Dutka, 2-3) Pricing decisions among other marketing decisions will be critical to the successful launch of the new product. A lot of factors and financial tools will be used to build their case on the pricing decision. The general rule of thumb is that the price Procter and gamble employs should be enough to cover the cost, give an acceptable profit margin as well as attract customers. As noted, close up has a range of pleasantly flavored toothpaste, and also oral hygiene brands are numerous in the consumer goods market. Therefore, Procter and gamble will have to employ competitive prices on its new products to carve a niche in the already flooded market.
Conclusion
In summary, business intelligence sets apart what company will be successful and the one that fails. This is because of the increased importance of knowledge as a competitive tool.
References
Loshin, David. Business Intelligence: The Savvy Manager’s Guide, Getting Onboard with emerging IT. Maryland, US: Morgan Kaufmann. 2003.
Thierauf, Robert, J. Effective Business Intelligence Systems. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. 2001.
Dutka, Alan. Competitive Intelligence For The Competitive Edge. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. 1999.
Knowthis.com. Competitive intelligence. 2007. Web.