Another farewell

Ending SCIA Board Membership

After a couple of very fruitful, active and rewarding years at the board of the Swiss Competitive Intelligence Association (SCIA) new ventures in my professional life dictate another mile stone to be completed.

With my relocation to Valais and the new challenge to build a new, global contract management function for the world's largest Contract Manufacturing Organization in Pharma, Biotech, Life Science I had to hand over my board membership to two new SCIA board memberswho are in fact very well known CI seniors and will enrich SCIA greatly.

To my former fellow board members Maarit, Urszula, Kurt, Robert and Thomas I would like to say: "It has been a great honor and pleasure to serve our Swiss Competitive Intelligence practitioners and collaborate with so many consultants, scholars and partners over the years. I will miss the friendly and productive, creative discussions at board meetings and in pubs, the gatherings at global SCIP conferences and the occasional chat in between. I am sure you will continue to have fun and success and be able to build this society stronger and more robust over time. You have become great friends, advisors and colleagues and I am proud having been part of the SCIA success story for some time."

To Monika and Chistian I would like to express my congratulations and thanks for the nice hand-over experience and our other encounters over the years as CI professionals.

You all are welcome at any time down here in beautiful Valais.

To the SCIA members, sponsors and partners I would like to express my deepest gratitude to be loyal, forthcoming, demanding at times and always friendly in any way. Serving you, learning with you, driving the Swiss CI community forward has been a pleasure beyond words and I thank you for that experience and the unforgettable evenings in Zurich the past years.

SCIA workshop

CI Roadmap by GIA

As a long time Global Intelligence Alliance customer I have grown familiar with their services and impact. The CI Development Roadmap had helped me in my former function to establish a CI function for a global chemicals conglomerate.

This new installment of workshop, Competitive Intelligence Magazine article and White Paper on the GIA Competitive Intelligence Roadmap plus my personal experience with it in a corporate setting was sbject of the November 24 workshop in Zurich for the Swiss Competitive Intelligence Alliance.

As you can find in below's documents GIA describes a CI function's evolution in 5 potential development stages across 6 distinct success factors. The matrix they use compares the functions of CI organization, scope, process, culture, tool and deliverables.

As a global Market & Competitive Intelligence executive I turned this matrix into a sophisticated survey and program for my former management to determine the status quo of the then CI function, compare with best practice whereas the gap analysis resulted in firm mandates by these very executives.

Have fun studying the material and let me know if you have any questions.

• Roadmap Presentation GIA
• Ciba Case Study
• Transforming into Project Initiative
• GIA White Paper
• CI Magazine Article

SCIA Workshop

Lean version of EuroSCIP

November 24 I will run a leaner version of the half-day workshop I gave in Amsterdam at the European Competitive Intelligence Summit by SCIP November 4th.

Hope to greet you there and this time I also hope to be able to run the show with Hans Hedin who needed to stay back home this time around.

SCIA Education Day

Half Day CI Event

At the Swiss Competitive Intelligence Association (SCIA) we are preparing a half day event to support our national members in their efforts to gain traction for their Competitive Intelligence related career paths.

We were able to win quite a number of top notch speakers to the topic and I certainly hope that our members and additional interested CI professionals will join in numbers on September 29, 2009 in Zurich.

Monika Giese (Switzerland) will talk about a case of an internal annual CI education program at a large global corporation and focus on the implementation of the Prescott/Comai CI model there.

Stefan Schuppisser (Switzerland) is a leading business school professor and is just about to ramp up academic efforts here in Switzerland to support CI professionals and companies much more intensely as in the past.

Rainer Michaeli(Germany) will introduce ICI's options to support your educational needs as a CI practitioner.

So will Toni Nagle (United Kingdom) of ACI, SCIA members and interested visitors will learn about their opportunities to become better educated CI pro's from various angles.

SCIP will support SCIA with material and a featured reading/commentary via phone by Bonnie Hohof (US) of SCIP.

And finally Alessandro Comai (Spain) and John Prescott (US) will also dial in to introduce their World Class CI Model, share their experience in CI education and provide insights into career path supporting CI training options.

All speakers in the room and on the phone will finally join forces in a major panel discussion fed by SCIA members questions (via survey as mentioned above) and live questions in the room and from the sessions.

Event Flyer.

Join the events via this link.

SCIA Event June 25

World-class CI Organizations

The Swiss Competitive Intelligence Association (SCIA) invited members and other interested Competitive Intelligence professionals to the 2009 summer evening event “World-class Competitive Intelligence Organizations: Academic Model vs. Reality” presented by Monika Giese, Basel (Switzerland).

In her presentation Monika provided exciting insights in her decades-long experience as a leading Competitive Intelligence executive in the pharmaceutical industry at Smith Kline, Roche and Novartis among others.

Sharing some best practice tips in terms of exposure within the own organization Monika introduced various models she recommended to develop and run Competitive Intelligence departments or functions within large corporate settings.

With friendly permission of Jan Herring of ACI and world renowned business school professor and Competitive Intelligence scholar John Prescott of Katz Graduate School of Business Swiss Competitive Intelligence Association (SCIA) members learned about their models to evaluate internal Competitive Intelligence capabilities, identify gaps and generate solutions for sustainable Competitive Intelligence operations.

At the Swiss Competitive Intelligence Association (SCIA)’s Education Day September 29, 2009 Monika will dive into Novartis’ example of organizing and running Competitive Intelligence education events featuring the world’s most known Competitive Intelligence consultants and scholars for all Competitive Intelligence professionals inside Novartis to excel in their tasks and Competitive Intelligence activities.

John Prescott and Alessandro Comai will also join (by phone conference) the Swiss Competitive Intelligence Association (SCIA)’s Education Day September 29 among some other high profile Competitive Intelligence scholars and other speakers.

Please find your way to Swiss Competitive Intelligence Association (SCIA)’s events via this events link. Monika Giese is in the process to establish her own business these days. John Prescott and Alessandro Comai are the authors and scholars of World Class Competitive Intelligence.

Feel free to comment or post questions on or about Swiss Competitive Intelligence Association (SCIA)’s events as I might be in a good position to respond exhaustively as a member of the board of the Swiss Competitive Intelligence Association (SCIA).