Next week, more than 700 competitive intelligence and strategic planning professionals will gather in Philadelphia for the 2012 Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals International Conference and Exhibition.  What can we expect from this year's conference?

If a brief analysis of the topics of the two conference keynote presentations offer any clues, it's that CI professionals today face two intimidating and interrelated challenges: the expectation that they provide keen insights into the future volatility and uncertainty in the markets in which their companies operate, and that the senior managers running these businesses are increasingly skeptical of such insights.  

• In the first keynote presentation, Govindan Nair, former Chief Economist at The World Bank, will provide instruction to CI professionals about how to better deal with the micro-level consequences of unexpected macro-level shifts in a complex global economy.
• In the second keynote, Dr. Mario Moussa, Co-President of the Wharton Strategic Persuasion Workshop posits that actionable intelligence and brilliant ideas are not enough to influence members of the C-suite.  CI professionals must also possess leadership, emotional intelligence, and relationship-building skills to influence and convince senior leadership about the veracity of their insights.

With more than 50 sessions and seven pre-conference workshops, the 2012 SCIP International Conference and Exhibition is the premier educational and networking opportunity for CI professionals.   We hope to see you there.

One of the toughest challenges for competitive intelligence functions is to regularly and consistently monitor and collect the right intelligence to produce forward-looking and actionable warning of developing industry conditions.  Operating in the belief that the intelligence function should collect as much information as possible about competitors, market dynamics, customer needs and other topics, many CI professionals throw up their hands in frustration and abandon the effort entirely.

Drawing on techniques developed in the government and military intelligence communities, Outward Insights helps organizations define and monitor intelligence indicators -- future industry and market activity pre-defined for significance -- as part of a comprehensive intelligence early warning capability.  We start by using using industry scenarios to define future industry developments that are diagnostic and predictive of future conditions.  We then track and collect a manageable set of intelligence indicators by leveraging both published- and primary-source information.  Using our novel cloud-based competitive intelligence information tool -- CI Central -- we organize, sort, and analyze the indicators to produce forward-looking early warning alerts that help companies manage industry uncertainty and set proactive strategies.

Outward Insights provides ongoing indicators monitoring and analysis to help resource-constrained CI departments meet the demand for forward-looking and anticipatory intelligence.  Contact us today to learn more.

Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals 2012 Annual Conference and Exhibition, May 14-17, 2012, Philadelphia:

• War-gaming for Veterans, featuring Outward Insights President Ken Sawka
• The End of the Sourcemap: How Technology is Revolutionizing the Art and Practice of CI, by Outward Insights Vice President Karen Rothwell 
• Linking Intelligence to Strategy With an Early Warning Indicators Framework, by Ken Sawka

International Association for Intelligence Education, May 21-24, 2012, Washington DC.  Outward Insights President Ken Sawka presents "Intelligence Issues Confronting Business and Government, and Methods for Tackling Them."

Special Libraries Association 2012 Conference and Exhibition, July 15-18, 2012, Chicago.  Outward Insights Vice President Karen Rothwell will participate in the Competitive Intelligence Division's Intelligence Cafe, speaking on data visualization and competitive intelligence.

Connections 2012 War-gaming Conference, July 23-26, 2012, Washington DC.  Outward Insights President Ken Sawka will participate in a panel discussion, Expanding the Application of War-gaming.

Frost & Sullivan "On Demand" eBroadcasts.  These free, 60-minute webinars provide real-life case studies on today's most pressing CI and strategic planning challenges: 

• • Using Competitive War-Gaming to Improve Product Launch Strategies
  • Using Early Warning Intelligence to Anticipate External Threats and Minimize Strategic Risk  
  • The Seven Secrets to Guarantee Competitive Intelligence Impact and Longevity