Strategic planning rounds starting for 2010 – What to focus on in Market Intelligence?

The Society of Strategic Management of Finland (SSJS) regularly arranges “Strategy Evenings” in order to promote a shared understanding of strategic thinking and management. One of these Strategy Evenings was hosted by Global Intelligence Alliance on January 14, 2010. The topic of the evening was “The role of market information in strategic planning”.

The linkage between market information and strategic planning is very much of current interest, as most companies are initiating their annual strategic planning round early in the calendar year. Speakers on the topic in the Strategy Evening were

• Riku Österman, Head of Services Intelligence at Nokia Corporation
• Nelli Paasikivi, Development Director at Konecranes Oyj
• Samuli Skurnik, Vice Chairman of the Board at the Society of Strategic Management of Finland
• Markko Vaarnas, CEO at Global Intelligence Alliance Group

Strategy Barometer 2009: Understanding changes in the market environment ranks high on the list of challenges in Finnish companies
Samuli Skurnik from SSJS in his presentation spoke about the recently published Strategy Barometer 2009, a research survey among 1,203 Finnish executives that revealed that changes in business and competitive environment, as well as understanding customer needs are some of the most pressing challenges that companies are facing today. Under the continually uncertain global economic outlook, Finnish companies hardly make an exception among their peers globally.

Strategic planning and decision-making is not easy, but systematic Market Intelligence makes it easier
Following the introductory presentations, a panel discussion was held that featured Nokia’s and Konecranes’ approaches to linking strategic planning and Market Intelligence, coupled with consultant’s views from GIA.

GIA Group’s CEO Markko Vaarnas pointed out that based on the results of GIA’s Global Market Intelligence Survey 2009 (n=718 globally), decision-making was considered efficient in 55% of the surveyed companies that had an MI function in place, while in those that didn’t have an MI function properly organized, only 38% considered their decision-making as efficient. A more immediately measurable criterion is the availability of information when the need arises; In 82% of the surveyed companies that had an MI function in place, information was easily available, while of those companies without systematic MI, only 53% viewed that information would be available quickly when needed.

Linking market information to strategic planning at Nokia Corporation: Focus on the impact of market information
In the panel discussion, Riku Österman from Nokia Corporation stressed the importance of producing such intelligence deliverables to support strategic planning that have an impact on decision-making. While Nokia according to Österman “probably is a text book example of conducting a full range of intelligence efforts”, he mentioned that not everything is being done continuously, and his intelligence team focuses on deliverables that at the time will probably have the greatest impact on business. A large part of the impact according to Österman comes from the clear articulation of key arguments to leaders, coupled with a solid analysis in the background to support the arguments.

Linking market information to strategic planning at Konecranes: Focus on transparency and easily digestible information
Nelli Paasikivi from Konecranes in her comments to the panel discussion brought up the importance of transparency; At Konecranes, market intelligence is being delivered to very large groups of people internally in the spirit of boosting the employees’ knowledge of Konecranes’ business environment and key developments in it. Important market information should also make an “enjoyable read”, therefore a lot of focus has been put on the format in which information is being presented and delivered, Paasikivi says. Finally, Paasikivi also underlines that it’s artificial to draw a strict line between strategic and tactical information, but the corporate strategy needs to respond “online” to important changes in the operating environment.