Location

Where are CI units located from an organizational point of view? There are a number of structural variations. In practice, they boil down to three:

• All CI is produced in one, central location for distribution to designated individuals or throughout the organization. This is a classic centralized model. It is most often managed as a corporate headquarters function and is most effective in situations where the forms of CI most often needed are strategy oriented, target oriented, and/or technology oriented. Of course, there can be a number of such units throughout a firm. One view has it that such a centralized unit tends to be smaller, with strong ties to its end users and capable of generating high levels of trust in them, which is typical of "high value strategic CI units." ^[1]

• Each unit that has a need for some form of CI has its own CI unit. For example, each product manager or geographic division, may have a separate CI unit, providing CI to that department or division only. This is a decentralized model. It is most often effective in situations where the forms of CI most often needed are tactics oriented, target oriented, and/or technology oriented. A variation of this is the case where individuals throughout the firm are expected to perform their own necessary CI as a part of their jobs.

• A series of decentralized CI units is controlled or coordinated by a central CI manager. That manager assures that critical intelligence is shared among the various units, helps avoid overlaps in research efforts and spending, provides training and oversight, and also usually conducts CI for a small number of headquarters end users. This is the hub and spoke model. It is most often effective in situations where the decentralized units provide tactics-oriented and/or technology-oriented CI while the central CI unit provides strategy-oriented and/or target-oriented CI.

Where will your CI unit be located in the organizational hierarchy? A decision must be made about the administrative responsibility for the CI unit. A "special" unit or joint supervision rarely work. These are the hallmarks of a unit with no real future and little, if any, real impact on the long-term or critical decision making within the organization. Usually they mark the creation of a CI unit in an effort to follow what others, often competitors, have done. Once the unit is created in such enterprises, it will usually suffer the fate of other "flavors of the month."

Having excluded those variations, other options remain. Typically, departments such as marketing, business development, and strategic planning can all make a strong case for having the CI function report to them. A chief information officer (CIO) may also be a logical candidate to supervise and direct a CI unit because of the CI unit's heavy reliance on information gathering and management and its need to provide reliable support to a wide number of corporate functions, all of which may dovetail with the charter of a CIO. However, in actuality that has rarely happened. The probable reasons are as follows:

• Most CIOs manage knowledge or data management systems (KMS) that are essentially quantitative in focus, whereas CI, as a discipline, is most often qualitative in focus. ^[2]

• CI professionals need to be able to access the people who provided the data as well as the data. Most KMS are keyed to storing and manipulating data.

• Most KMS are not set up to capture data on anything that does not involve the company. Yet company personnel, from the CEO down, interface daily with customers, from whom information on competitors can be developed, as well as suppliers, distributors, and the like.

• The sales force, potentially the most powerful source of data in support of CI, is rarely involved with KMS and related efforts. Yet CI units that can tap into the sales force have found significant benefits for both sides of the transaction.

• Few, if any, KMS provide current information on employees. However, knowing which employees are members of what professional association, or where they worked before and what they did there is something desired by many CI professionals.