Good Business Intelligence: The Processes And Benefits

Business intelligence does not mean donning a pair of dark glasses and standing in the corner of a rival business’s office to steal their trade secrets. It is far more than that, after all what use is the secrets if you don’t adapt your own business to make it more appealing than theirs? As cutthroat as it seems, it can be almost guaranteed they will be doing the same to you. Business development is essential but you must be flexible especially when you are faced with competition. A simple but effective way to analyse just how much of a threat a rival is a process called SWOT, which looks at the Strengths and Weaknesses of your rival and displays the Opportunities and Threats these facts present.

If you know, everyone will.

Don’t trust channels that start off ‘a friend of a friend’s brother told me’ because even if the information is legitimate, it will be old. After all, it would have to pass through all those people before it reached you and your rival would probably have changed their plans by then anyway. Secondary sources are never reliable for up to date information. If you want to stay ahead of the game you must spend a proportion of your profits on finding the information out first. For example, if you work in retail, employ a plain clothed individual to simply walk around your rival’s shop, speaking to the staff to see how they handle their customers as well as to check their prices. This form of gathering business intelligence is simple and the easiest to implement into your own business development.

Protect what you know

A good defence is important as a good offence. After all your rival will be after your information as much you are after theirs. Simple things like putting a password on your computer to pop up whenever it switches to screensaver can stop people prying into your files while you’re away from your desk. A number one way to protect yourself is to never give anyone a copy of your business plan or even to see it until you are certain they will keep it confidential. The last thing you want is for your business plan to turn up in your rival’s office.

Work as a Team

Everyone under your employment must work as a team for efficient business development. Ten or even twenty people with ears and eyes open can protect your business from your rivals but also pick up business intelligence that would slip by an individual. Encourage this among your employees and you never know just what they may report back with. Regular meetings should be held where these can be accumulated and discussed in reflection to business development.

Collect contacts

Business intelligence isn’t just about the competition. It’s about your own business development just as much if not more so. The best way to gather information to help and bolster your company is to visit business conventions and conferences. While the Internet is a great resource for information, nothing can compare to sitting down and meeting professionals and possibly even starting new contracts. This will also help you get a much wider scope of the business market as a whole as well receiving business intelligence that would never make the Internet. However if you can’t make a large number of these conferences there are sites and forums on the net with excellent contact and information exchange opportunities.

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How to compile a Data Base Quickly for your Small Business

You could have the best small business marketing strategy on the block, but it won’t do much good unless you can market to potential customers. Unfortunately, if you’re just starting out in business, your list of contacts – potential customers that you’ll try to sell to – is probably mercilessly short. (Unless you’re coming from another job in the industry – then your list may be fairly robust.)

But whatever the current state of your contact list, chances are that you’ll want to build it as part of your overall small business marketing strategy. The question is: How?

The most obvious answer is to purchase a targeted list from a company that builds lists for a living. The downside to that small business marketing option is that it can be expensive – prohibitively expensive for many small businesses just starting out.

Fortunately, there are a few alternative sources for contact information that you can use to build your own small business marketing list – a small business marketing list that may even generate better responses than a small business marketing list you would buy.

If you’re marketing to other businesses, consider using your local Chamber of Commerce member list (or any locality’s Chamber list, for that matter). Not only do most Chambers list the names, addresses, and phone numbers of their members, but they also list the business’s industry category – so you can prepare a targeted small business marketing list of your own!

If you’re marketing to consumers, consider using the phone book. You won’t be able to compile a targeted small business marketing list this way (you won’t know, for example, which households bought plasma TVs in the last year) but you’ll get a list of prospective customers and all it will cost is your time. Now that many phone directories are online, you can make your work much easier by copying information from the directories into your small business marketing contact database.

Another great way to compile a list of potential customers is to set up a website that asks visitors to register their names and e-mail addresses. You’ll probably find that visitors won’t be inclined to sign up with you, though, unless you offer an incentive – like a free gift (or even an e-book or article) or discount on your product or service. Setting up a website like that has another small business marketing benefit as well: through your “free gift” you can hook the prospective customer on your product or service (by sending a sample-sized version of the product, for example, or an article positioning yourself as an expert on the service you provide).

Of course, the easiest and best way to build your small business marketing contact list is to keep track of past and current customers as well as those who’ve inquired about your product or service. Taking the time to write down your customers’ contact information when you make a sale or have a meeting will pay off in the end in the form of a highly targeted, rich small business marketing list of exactly the kind of people you want to market to.

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EU court dismisses Microsoft appeal

UXEMBOURG (AP) -- A European Union court on Monday dismissed Microsoft Corp.'s appeal against an EU antitrust order that ordered it to share communications code with rivals and sell a copy of Windows without Media Player.

It also upheld a €497 million ($613 million) fine - the largest ever levied by EU regulators.

The EU Court of First Instance ruled against Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) on both parts of the case, saying the European Commission was correct in concluding that Microsoft was guilty of monopoly abuse in trying to use its power over desktop computers to muscle into server software.

It also said regulators had clearly demonstrated that selling media software with Windows had damaged rivals.

"The court observes that it is beyond dispute that in consequence of the tying consumers are unable to acquire the Windows operating system without simultaneously acquiring Windows Media Player," it said.

"In that regard, the court considers that neither the fact that Microsoft does not charge a separate price for Windows Media Player nor the fact that consumers are not obliged to use that Media Player is irrelevant."

But it did overturn regulators' decision to appoint a monitoring trustee to watch how Microsoft had complied with the ruling, saying the Commission had exceeded its powers by ordering Microsoft to pay for all the costs of the trustee.

Microsoft can appeal the decision to the EU's highest court, the European Court of Justice, within two months.

The Commission immediately said it welcomed the ruling, without giving details.

The European Committee for Interoperable Systems called the ruling a good result.

"It's a very good day, for it signals that there will be fair competition for the sector," said Maurits Dolmans, a lawyer for the group.

In its 248-page ruling, the court upheld both the Commission's argument and its order for Microsoft to hand over information on server protocols to rivals. Microsoft had claimed these were protected by patents and the Commission was forcing it to give away valuable intellectual property at little or no cost.

The court confirmed "that the necessary degree of interoperability required by the Commission is well founded and that there is no inconsistency between that degree of interoperability and the remedy imposed by the Commission.

Farming goes vertical By Hillary Woolley, Business 2.0 Magazine

The term "urban farming" may conjure up a community garden where locals grow a few heads of lettuce. But some academics envision something quite different for the increasingly hungry world of the 21st century: a vertical farm that will do for agriculture what the skyscraper did for office space.

Build a 21-story circular greenhouse, says Dickson Despommier, an environmental science professor at Columbia University, and it can be as productive as 588 acres of land - growing, say, 12 million heads of lettuce a year.

Greenhouse giant: By stacking floors full of produce, a vertical farm could rake in $18 million a year.

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With the world's population expected to increase by 3 billion by 2050 - nearly all of it in cities - and with 80 percent of available farmland already in use, Despommier sees a burgeoning need for such buildings. So he talked to fellow academics at the University of California at Davis about using rooftop solar panels to power 24-hour grow lights and found NASA-like technology that would capture evaporating water for irrigation.

Two Buck Chuck takes a bite out of Napa

"We need to devote as much attention to vertical farming as we did to going to the moon," Despommier says. "It will free the world from having to worry where our next meal will come from."

It should also turn a handsome profit. Despommier's calculations peg the construction cost of a 21-story vertical farm at about $84 million, operating costs at $5 million a year, and revenue at $18 million a year, based on the price of produce at upscale Manhattan delis.

Getting product to market is one of the most expensive parts of traditional agriculture, but with a vertical farm, your retailers are just down the block. Despommier has been talking to VCs in both the United States and Europe.

The Sustainable Agriculture Initiative, a group of 20 food companies including Coca-Cola (Charts, Fortune 500), Kraft (Charts), McDonald's (Charts, Fortune 500), and Nestlé, has expressed

ABN Amro boards won't side with bidders

By Toby Sterling, AP Business Writer
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands --ABN Amro's boards will not recommend either of the two rival takeover bids the Dutch bank has received, they told shareholders Sunday.

The Barclays PLC bid fits better with ABN's own corporate strategy, while the one from a consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland PLC is worth more, but is risky, the company's managing board and supervisory board said in a statement Sunday.

Either takeover, if successful, would be the largest in the history of the financial industry. ABN Amro Holding NV shareholders meet Thursday to discuss the Barclays bid, which expires Oct. 4, and the RBS offer, which ends a day later.

In the statement, the boards said they "acknowledge that the consortium offer ... is clearly superior for the ABN Amro shareholders from a financial point of view."

At Friday's closing prices, the mostly cash bid by RBS was worth 70.2 billion euros ($97.4 billion), or 37.91 euros per ABN share -- 19 percent more than Barclays' mostly share bid.

However, ABN shares closed at 35 euros ($48.55), signaling investors still have doubts as to whether the RBS deal will prevail.

Chief Executive Rijkman Groenink said the boards "could not be expected, as representatives of the company, to recommend the breakup of the bank."

Among the consortium, Fortis NV of Belgium wants ABN's Dutch operations, Banco Santander Central Hispano SA wants its Brazilian and Italian arms, and RBS wants the rest, including ABN's investment banking arm.

Barclays' proposed merger would largely leave ABN intact -- except for its U.S. arm, LaSalle Bank, which Groenink agreed to sell to Bank of America Corp. for $21 billion in what was widely seen as a poison pill measure to frustrate the RBS-led group.

However, Groenink told Dutch state broadcaster NOS Sunday that "the chance is greatest that it is the consortium that reaches the finish line."

While Barclays' bid has passed all regulatory hurdles, the RBS bid awaits approval from EU competition authorities and a statement of "no objection" from Dutch financial authorities.

In addition, amid recent turmoil on credit markets, there is some question as to whether the consortium members could run into trouble arranging financing for their deal -- even though all members have strong credit profiles and underwriting agreements are in place with prestigious financial management companies like Merrill Lynch & Co.

ABN said the amount of money the consortium still needs to raise "is high in absolute and relative terms, and market circumstances are volatile at this point in time."

It hinted at the risk the consortium could lower or walk away from its offer, citing the "material adverse change" clause in its offer documents, which ABN described as "broadly worded."

ABN vowed to work with Dutch and European regulators to resolve any conditions imposed on a deal with RBS, if it is the one shareholders approve.

"Nevertheless, the ABN Amro boards continue to see additional business and operational risks" in the RBS deal, they said.

Groenink said several times before he was sidelined from involvement in the talks that he preferred the Barclays deal. It was not clear whether lower-ranked employees would view the consortium as a hostile buyer, which could poison the process of combining operations.

Dutch media have reported that ABN's rivals in the Netherlands have been poaching customers since March, when the company first announced it was in merger talks with Barclays, but the company's earnings so far haven't shown any impact.

Dutch labor unions are unhappy with the prospect of either takeover, but are in general more favorable toward Barclays, reasoning that the overlap between Fortis and ABN Amro's operations will lead to layoffs if the consortium wins. However, the consortium has said it plans no forced layoffs.

Barclays has said it expects to cut or outsource more than 20,000 jobs in case it wins, mostly in Britain.