TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- Intelligence monitoring: a process that’s not so complicated, but essential
- The obstacles to effective intelligence monitoring
- Databases: indispensable tools for intelligence monitoring
- Beyond database access
- With TKM Platform, benefit from a single point of access to all the world’s databases
- The TKM platform, the solution for SME and start-up intelligence monitoring
The intelligence-monitoring approach has become essential for analyzing open information, which is currently growing very strongly. This leaves real opportunities for SMEs and start-ups that have a vital need for organized intelligence monitoring.
In a world where information is the key to competitiveness and where strategic and technological intelligence monitoring has become a necessity, controlling the cost of accessing quality raw information has become a major challenge.
By way of illustration, and when it comes to patent databases, companies continue to devote what we believe are far too large budgets to accessing this information, even though it is increasingly available for free or at much more reasonable cost.
Whether you are an SME executive or a monitoring analyst, you have probably run into this issue and must manage a limited budget dedicated to intelligence monitoring.
In this context, our software suite offers a genuine opportunity for quick access to a multitude of open data sources with worldwide coverage. This lets you set up a monitoring process on your competitors’ progress, markets, customers, or new technologies.
At TKM, we have also created the IZINOV solutions, which offer a genuinely accessible alternative for SMEs or start-ups.
INTELLIGENCE MONITORING: A PROCESS THAT’S NOT SO COMPLICATED, BUT ESSENTIAL
Whatever your industry, technology intelligence monitoring and strategic intelligence monitoring are more essential than ever. They let you stay at the cutting edge of innovation, keep an eye on the competition and spot market opportunities.
However, this intelligence-monitoring approach is increasingly becoming professionalized, both in terms of tools and methodology. Indeed, the abundance of information we have been swamped with since the rise of the Internet has finally put an end to the illusion that being well informed was easy. That myth is over! And we collectively need to relearn the basics of effective monitoring, meaning monitoring that usefully feeds the decision-making and strategic-management process.
Accessing data is one thing. Classifying and analyzing that data is much better. And sharing it to internally feed a process of collective intelligence is the ultimate goal.
How do companies approach intelligence monitoring today?
SMEs, in particular, often devote more resources to monitoring than they themselves realize.
But for lack of organization and effective tools, monitoring is limited to decentralized, even individual activities, without an organized, collective and methodical monitoring strategy.
Everyone watches their own networks, sets up Google Alerts, reads a few specialized newsletters, or keeps track of a handful of key information sources. But nothing allows this monitoring to be consolidated into a strategic-management process, and a lot of important information can remain under the radar for a long time.
THE OBSTACLES TO EFFECTIVE INTELLIGENCE MONITORING
Several factors can contribute to this situation.
Do you recognize yourself in the following points?
- Lack of resources: SMEs often have limited resources to devote to intelligence monitoring. Granted, time is money. But so is a missed opportunity…
- Cost of databases: A corollary of the previous point, access to specialized, paid databases is often prohibitively expensive. And it’s even worse to pay a lot for access to a database that won’t be used… Not to mention the risk that this investment won’t survive the next budget review.
- Lack of training: Monitoring is not only a matter of accessing information, but also of methods and techniques for analyzing that information and quickly making it speak usefully. For lack of time or staff, part-time outsourcing can be a solution.
- Lack of analysis tools: Even with the right data sources, the volume of information is often too large to process manually. This requires filtering and analysis tools. These tools will also let you capitalize over time on this knowledge base, turning it into a genuine company asset.
Read also – Weak Signals: How to Avoid Missing Them in Your Monitoring Work?
Intelligence monitoring is often perceived as a luxury or a secondary task, or even worse, a chore… When in fact it has a place, more than ever, at the heart of a company’s strategic management.
But this is not inevitable!
The cost and complexity associated with accessing and analyzing paid databases are obstacles, but they are not insurmountable. There are indeed solutions to make monitoring more effective and less costly, as we will see below.
DATABASES: INDISPENSABLE TOOLS FOR INTELLIGENCE MONITORING
Databases: what are we talking about and why are they useful?
All research work, all conferences, all claims in the form of patents or trademarks, all collaborative projects (in France, but also in Europe or worldwide), all developments in standards… are published and available online in searchable databases. This data is the raw material for any technology or strategic intelligence-monitoring approach.
Unlike general-purpose search engines, databases offer reliable, detailed content. Their structure also allows for highly precise querying, which is very valuable for monitoring.
Once the right “search strategy” has been developed and validated, monitoring can easily be automated.
The good news is that this access is increasingly open and free.
The bad news is that this does not solve the problem of the amount of information to process — quite the opposite…The monitoring analyst is often overwhelmed by the mass of raw information to sort through. Even with a very finely tuned search strategy, it is not uncommon for 80 to 90% of the information returned by this automated monitoring to prove irrelevant…
The solution of being more restrictive in collection is not satisfactory either, since it risks missing relevant information.
All these tasks pull the person in charge of monitoring away from the genuinely useful activities that should normally fill their days: disseminating information, building collective intelligence, investigating topics of interest in greater depth, or digging into weak signals…
In short, everything that makes the monitoring profession interesting, but also what gives it its strategic importance. On this point, AI can help you save precious time…Read also: How Is Machine Learning Revolutionizing the Monitoring Process?
The cost of accessing databases
Free or paid?
While using paid databases can be justified (coverage, speed, advanced search features…), it is clearly not a mandatory step, especially for an SME wanting to professionalize its monitoring.
Between doing nothing about monitoring, because it’s too expensive — which amounts to driving without insurance just because you’ve never had an accident — and spending a fortune on access to raw data, there fortunately is a happy medium.
When it comes to patents, for example, there are free services operated by the offices themselves, which provide a first level of access that is entirely satisfactory for starting a competitive and technology intelligence-monitoring process.
While it can sometimes prove useful to later move to paid databases, particularly to benefit from additional features (download speed, sorting and filtering functions), you can also find very satisfactory solutions at reasonable prices, starting at 3,000 euros per year.
A quick economic analysis of the expected gain will quickly help inform your decision.
The cost can vary depending on several factors, including the following:
- Number of users: this will be the case for most databases
- Data coverage: the more complete a database is in terms of journals, time coverage or geographic coverage, the more likely it is to be expensive.
- Updates: some databases offer faster updates than others
- Advanced features: often unnecessary, since they cannot replace the multi-source analysis tools you will need to use going forward, these costly functions are sometimes offered as an option.
BEYOND DATABASE ACCESS
To be effective, you won’t need just one database, but more likely 2 or 3… and sometimes many more (if you are also monitoring collaborative projects). On top of that, you will add everything you collect on the internet (press, competitors’ websites…).
Very quickly, you will therefore need to bring all this information together (once filtered, or in order to filter it) into a single analysis tool. Otherwise, you will be condemned to carrying out as many analyses as you have input sources, in order to ultimately attempt an impossible synthesis.
Especially given the growing mass of information, it is essential to have tools to automate the process of initially gathering and sorting information, and to analyze and structure the results of this monitoring.
Without these tools, even access to the most comprehensive databases will quickly become useless.
Read also – Knowledge Management: How to Help Companies Build an Intangible Asset from Intelligence Monitoring
WITH TKM PLATFORM, BENEFIT FROM A SINGLE POINT OF ACCESS TO ALL THE WORLD’S DATABASES
Pooling databases: the power to bring your analyses together in one space
One of the great strengths of our intelligence-monitoring and analysis platform is that it allows pooling and consolidating into a single database all the results from every worldwide database you want to integrate into your monitoring or your analyses.
You thus have a single point of access that opens the door to a multitude of specialized databases, free or paid, ranging from patents to scientific publications and collaborative projects, to which you will also add your internet monitoring… With TKM, you can then work with this material, share it, distribute it to your internal community, and build on it over time.
Access to open, free data
One of the other obvious advantages is access to databases. With IPMetrix, no more endless justifications to get access to an expensive database. You have everything you need in one place, letting you focus on analyzing and applying the data rather than collecting it.
Access to major scientific publications
When you need it, TKM Platform also lets you tap into databases giving access to major scientific publications. This means direct access to cutting-edge research, and to publications or conferences that can have a significant impact on your R&D and innovation strategies.
THE TKM PLATFORM, THE SOLUTION FOR SME AND START-UP INTELLIGENCE MONITORING
Artificial intelligence serving your efficiency
As mentioned above, the amount of information flowing into a monitoring system is a real threat to the sustainability of monitoring activities. It can indeed quickly become discouraging to be confronted with a mass of information, the vast majority of which proves useless or irrelevant, with no real way to be more effective upstream when selecting it.
A generic artificial intelligence is unlikely to help you much, since its performance levels probably won’t be enough for you. There will still be a lot of checking and filtering work left to do afterward.
Only a specific AI, meaning one trained on your particular use case, will let you reach levels of performance and efficiency that will save you a lot of time, without increasing the risk of missing relevant information.
Advanced filtering and analysis
TKM Platform does not just give you access to data; it also gives you the tools to filter and analyze it. This means you can quickly isolate the information most relevant to your company, making your monitoring process much more effective.
The “Start-up” module also gives you access to more than 220,000 start-ups worldwide, across all fields, and lets you stay informed about their economic activities.
Collaboration and sharing
The tools offered by TKM are also designed for collaboration. Teams can share data, analyses and reports in real time, which speeds up decision-making and ensures everyone is on the same page.
Data security
Security and confidentiality are also major concerns, and TKM has taken this into account. Your data is securely stored and accessible only to authorized people within your organization.