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.

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

It is always hard to give up a project. Due to my career move this was a no brainer though as the new owner is on top of the CI solutions provider list.

"Dear Markintell.com community,

Over the past couple of years you have come to know me as the founder and owner of Markintell.com, a regular speaker at SCIP and SCIA events, publisher of various intelligence related works and (some of you at least) a CI colleague and friend.

With a very recent career change I have decided to transfer Markintell.com into the hands of a very professional, traditional and well embedded CI solutions provider - Digimind. I was just not in the position to contribute enough anymore as my private live and career options shifted quite substantially (incl. relocation, new industry and job position).

Sad and nostalgic at first, both the personal changes and the new ownership for Markintell.com excite me now very much as you, the user, will be served much better from now on with valuable, frequent content and I can concentrate entirely on the new field.

As a member of the Board of Directors of SCIP I will still remain well connected with CI and continue to serve the global CI community. Especially within my function as SCIP’s Chairman of the International Advisory Committee (IAC).

Please feel free to follow me on the established business networks, contact me in any regard (both via www.thie.me) and receive my gratitude for having been an excellent audience to me on Markintell.com.

Finally, please continue to support the new owner of the site with ideas, suggestions, contributions and challenges to the site will continue to grow along your needs as CI professionals.

My best wishes for your future both personally and professionally, Jens Thieme (www.thie.me)..."

So, that was it - but wait: check out the very first post by the new owner and you will absolutely know that: more umph means more value for the Markintell community and this, my friends, is the best wrap up of a success and fun story for me - and undoubtedly a new era and success for Digimind and Markintell.com for many years to come!

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.

As every year the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) elects new members of the Board of Directors.

Dear SCIP members, please consult SCIP's strategic plan and the background information on this year's candidates to support your vote.

As you know, the society will take a quantum leap after the successful, member supported strategic alliance with the Frost & Sullivan Inistitute has been activated. International CI communities will require more professional support, global and regional competitive intelligence events will have to be created and run.

Please cast your vote to have your requirements covered in the next years going forward.

This year's candidates are:

Michel Bernaiche, Dunkin' Brands, CI Practitioner

Paul Kinsinger, Thunderbird School of Global Management and Managing, Scholar

Peter Shaw, Midwest Employers Casualty Company, Executive

Registration for the 2009 European Competitive Intelligence Summit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, is now available. Please come and join me at this conference which might become the largest Competitive Intelligence professionals gathering ever in Europe.

Running a pre-conference workshop this time with my friend Hans Hedin of the Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) I will be in best company with scores of global CI experts.

Check out the program here and register via the brochure or at SCIP's website.

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.

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).

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).

Joint half-day workshop with Hans Hedin of Global Intelligence Alliance at the 2009 Competitive Intelligence Summit by the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), Amsterdam November 4, 2009.

The model is based on a framework to develop or improve a Competitive Intelligence function. Dimensions such as Competitive Intelligence processes, Competitive Intelligence organization, Competitive Intelligence culture, Competitive Intelligence scope, Competitive Intelligence deliverables are being evaluated with this model and solutions worked-out, offered for various development stages labeled from “Firefighters” (ad-hoc, spontaneous and on-demand fragmented Competitive Intelligence activities) towards “world-class” Competitive Intelligence function containing structured and fully integrated best practice Competitive Intelligence solutions.

This workshop provides a hands-on learning experience about the key elements of a modern CI function and their development options.

You will identify CI process elements, organizational setup options, the various scopes of a CI function, tools potential, cultural status and driving forces. Participants will also be guided through development stages of the various functions and identify key elements of each function.

The framework will enable participants to determine the status quo of their own CI function and develop solutions for detailed improvements and sustainable progress.

The workshop includes best practice theory as well as actionable real world examples to generate executive buy-in and move the CI function towards world class status.

Workshop Objectives

* learn the fundamentals of a modern CI function broken down into real world key elements

* establish an actionable framework that is used to guide any improvement by identifying obstacles and solutions for reaching next step in the evolution process

* use the framework to generate executive buy-in and drive change throughout the organization
This is a joined workshop of a global intelligence consultancy and a corporate CI leader. You will walk away with a workable action plan to move your CI function from a given status to the desired end game in a structured way.

Workshop structure
This workshop will be of a highly participative nature. You will learn to apply the suggested methodology in your own organization. The presenters will use concepts, cases and real world examples in order to describe the evolution of a CI function. The participants will create a blueprint for their own development plan. This plan will be presented and discussed during the workshop, giving the participants the benefit of obtaining ideas and recommendations for how to proceed when implementing CI in his/her organization.

If you are interested in more detail or want to register for this and other workshops at the SCIP conference, please visit SCIP's dedicated European Summit website.

A Webinar presentation introducing the newest Global Intelligence Alliance (GIA) White Paper titled "World-Class Market Intelligence - From Firefighters to Futurists" was hosted May 6, 2009 by GIA where I featured a case study from my work as Global Head of Market & Competitive Intelligence.

As I used the World Class Market Intelligence Development Framework within my role at Ciba (part of BASF today) I transformed theory into practice while developing and ongoingly improving the global Market & Competitive Intelligence function.

The GIA White Paper features my case study which will also be subject to my half day workshop at the European Competitive Intelligence Summit in Amsterdam this November. Below you can find the Webinar slides and the White Paper that can also be downloaded via the Global Intelligence Alliance website.

Downloads

Webinar "World-Class Market Intelligence - From Firefighters to Futurists", size: 2.56 MB

White Paper "World-Class Market Intelligence - From Firefighters to Futurists", size 1.99 MB