People Upgrades: George Pruitt
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Published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on May 3, 2000. All rights reserved.
E-mail: MelindaSherwood@princetoninfo.com
Intelligence; Not Espionage — Larry Kahaner
Japanese managers, says Larry Kahaner, spend an
enormous amount of time perusing their competitors’ publications,
annual reports — anything and everything that they can get their
hands on to better understand their competition. By contrast, American
CEOs get most of their so-called intelligence by hobnobbing.
Kahaner, a former Business Week reporter and author of the 1996 book
“Competitive Intelligence,” says that if companies want to
survive in a global economy, they have to adopt more effective competitive
intelligence practices. “The new model is to run companies very
lean, and this requires you to know what works, and you learn through
competitive activities,” says Kahaner, who speaks on Thursday,
May 11, at 8 a.m. at the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals
at the Newark Marriott Hotel. Call 201-998-0173 (www.scip.org).
A licensed private investigator who lives in Virginia, Kahaner grew
up in Brooklyn, attended City College for a BS in physics, Class of
1972, and then earned a master’s in science journalism from Boston
University. He wrote for Business Week during the early 1980s, and
has written eight books. His website, www.kahaner.com, includes valuable
points on competitive intelligence, as well as ancient wisdom on business
in general.
“Competitive intelligence has to be done on a systematic basis
— it can’t be done haphazardly,” says Kahaner, who will present
these core concepts on competitive intelligence at the SCIP meeting:
Collection. Gathering the raw data. Contrary to myth,says Kahaner, competitive intelligence and industrial espionage arenot the same thing; nearly 85 to 90 percent of the information a companyneeds can be found ethically, through newspapers, speeches, publicdocuments, aerial photos, and other means. “I maintain that industrialespionage is a failure of competitive intelligence, because if youhave to steal something that means you were unskilled or too lazyto find it out using open sources,” he says.Often times, collecting information on a company is as simple goingto their headquarters or outpost. “I had one client who wantedto learn why his competitor was doing so well at loading and unloadingtrucks,” says Kahaner, “and I said why don’t you go therewith a sandwich and sit outside and watch him. That’s perfectly legaland you wonder why people don’t do it more often.”Analysis. Taking raw information or data and turning itinto intelligence or knowledge. This is where most managers trip themselvesup, says Kahaner, who makes a point of distinguishing between informationand knowledge with the following parable:Two stockbrokers each receive a stockquote on their pager at the sametime. They both buy and sell accordingly. One guy makes a million,the other loses millions. The difference lies in analysis, says Kahaner:”Two different interpretations,” he says. “People don’tlike to think. You can take three or four disparate pieces of informationand see a pattern.”Dissemination. Unless the information is in the righthands, it doesn’t mean anything, says Kahaner.Discovering. Explore the questions that intelligence bringsup. Here, too, a company’s system tends to break down — they mayput one employee on a CI job part-time and there’s no follow-up orconsistency.One of the excuses American managers love to use for not implementinga competitive intelligence program is that CI is not taught in businessschools, says Kahaner. To that, Kahaner says: unfortunately true,but it is taught almost everywhere else in the world, including Japan.”How many years did it take for American carmakers to believethat the Japanese were making betters cars than Detroit?”— Melinda SherwoodTop Of PagePeople Upgrades: George PruittMore important than upgrading your software is upgradingyour employee’s knowledge and skills, says George Pruitt, presidentof Thomas Edison State College, which specializes in educational opportunitiesfor adult students and programs that work in conjunction with corporateneeds (www.tesc.edu). “Knowledge is doubling every seven years,” says Pruitt.”That means that the challenge for businesses and employees isto update constantly. There used to be a notion that higher educationwas something that you did after high school. Now we know it takesplace all throughout your life and it never stops.”Pruitt will speak on “The Chamber, Education, and Your Business”on Tuesday, May 9, at 11:45 a.m. at the Mercer Chamber’s Hamiltondivision meeting, held at Giovi’s restaurant. Call 609-393-4143. Cost:$30.”There are several avenues in which business and education intersect,and the obvious one is workforce development,” says Pruitt, whois also chair of the Mercer Chamber. “Companies have to competewith more than just product services and prices — they have tocompete with their workforce. We were one of the first colleges inthe country that offered high-quality degree programs exclusivelyover the Internet, and we were the first to allow adults to gain creditfor some of the corporate training in the workplace.”Founded in 1972, Thomas Edison provides 14 degree programs at theassociate, baccalaureate and master degree level to approximately9,000 students, and has pioneered the use of telecourses, Internet-basedcourses, and independent study methods. Students can also earn collegecredit by demonstrating that they have attained college level learningthrough tests or performance evaluations.The college doesn’t just serve students — it serves businesses,too. In partnership with AT&T, Thomas Edison offers a masters in scienceand development, and will unveil a masters of arts and professionalstudies, a liberal arts program, this fall. A masters program forHuman Resources professionals, at the request of HR professionalsin the area, is also in the works.Prior to joining Thomas Edison, Pruitt was executive vice presidentfor the Council of Adult and Experiential Learning, an associationof 500 colleges and universities interested in particular learningstyles and needs of mature adult. He grew up in Chicago, and has aBS in biology from Illinois State, as well as a masters in counselingand PhD in higher education.How adults and young students view education first became apparentto Pruitt when he was teaching adult students at Towson State Universityin Baltimore. One day, he recalls, a snow storm forced classes tobe canceled. Most of the day students celebrated, but to his dismayall of his adult students showed up at class anyway. “An adultis not just an 18 year old who’s been around longer,” he says.”An adult learns differently than an 18 year old, they bring moreexperience, they’re self-motivated, and they tend to be more demandingbecause they know why they are there.”There’s another good reason why businesses and universities shouldpartner in the venture to enhance adult education: simple economics.”More dollars are being spent on education and training in corporateAmerica,” says Pruitt, “than in all the colleges in the U.S.”Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
