Overall Tasks

Overall Tasks

The core of the mission for any CI unit should be to provide needed intelligence, in a timely manner to key decision makers, which will then serve as an element in the firm's decision making and related actions (for more on mission statements, see Chapter 5). That means that those providing the CI must avoid having any preconceived position either for or against any specific policy or outcome that can be affected by their work.

In many cases, firms have found that they are comfortable drawing a bright line between providing intelligence and recommending policy. There are two principal reasons for doing so: to keep CI unbiased and to keep it free from the appearance of being biased. For example, if CI provided by your marketing unit stresses the need for additional distribution channels, that conclusion, even if valid, may be disregarded by non-marketing departments as special pleading.

However, you must not let the need to separate CI from policy making impede effective planning and policy making. For instance, it may be entirely appropriate for a CI analyst to examine the probable effects of alternative corporate policies, particularly when they entail responses of a particular competitor to your initiatives. The division between policy and CI must never be so rigid that the CI unit is precluded from assessing fairly the impacts of prior policy decisions.

Conversely, as the goal of CI is to provide the needed intelligence that will serve as a key element in decision making, an internal CI unit must avoid having a preconceived position on any specific corporate policy that may bear on, or be affected by, the CI research it is conducting.