AWARE: UK competitive intelligence consultants offering competitor analysis and research services, competitive intelligence training & workshops and CI and marketing strategy consultancy.

Categorising Information

There are four types of information available to companies.

What We Know We know needs to be kept up-to-date and accurate. It is the easy bit of information collection. The danger is that we get it wrong- and take an incorrect viewpoint, or make an invalid assumption. This then becomes the What we don't know we don't know category.

What we know we don't know is also easy. This is often the focus of market research and competitive analysis - to find out what we know we don't know. (You can identify these elements from a CI Audit - which should define what information is known and what is unknown and should be known).

What we don't know we know is more interesting - as it means that we suffer from blindspots preventing us seeing what we should know. To remove these we have to be able to abandon subjectivity and view things completely objectively. Often an audit carried out by outside consultants such as AWARE will reveal some of these aspects.

What we don't know we don't know is perhaps the most important category - as this is where we can get hurt. This is the new innovation or product that will substitute and replace our product. Or the company from a different business area that decides to enter our market. Like the third category, it can also be the result of a blindspot. We think we know something - when in truth, we don't know it. The danger here is that one can make incorrect decisions or take wrong directions. (Note: AWARE can help you here also - as in our work, we often see anomalies or spot signs of forthcoming change, that might be missed if we were closer to the subject and blinded by our industry assumptions).

This model was devised by Williams Inference , a company specialising in inferential scanning, used in advising stockbrokers and fund managers. It was also described in a competitive intelligence context by Sheila Wright and David Picton in 1998 at the Wright, Sheila and Pickton, David.. (1998). Improved
competitive strategy through value added competitive
third Annual SCIP European Conference held in Berlin. The model as above is based on the Johari matrix developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram. This looks at human potential - again as 4 types of knowledge"

The last What I don't know about myself and what others also don't know about me category is a person's hidden potential. It is the aim of a lot of training to reveal this so that the person can maximise their potential.

If you liked this tip, you can read more about the model as applied to competitive intelligence in the September/October 2006 issue of Competitive Intelligence magazine from the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals. For more tips such as this why not subscribe to the AWARE Marketing Tips newsletter. This contains more than just the Quick Tip produced on AWARE's Internet site. It contains recommended web-sites, AWARE news and much more. Also, visit the rest of our site for further ideas on competitive and marketing strategy. And if you need to obtain information on your competitors, check out AWARE's services pages to see how we can help you.

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