The Handbook of Market Intelligence: Understand, Compete and Grow in Global Markets, 2nd Edition

Chapter 13Market Intelligence for Innovation and Product Life Cycle Management

Case: Competitive Technical Intelligence (CTI) for a Car Tire Manufacturer

The car tire company had decided to invest in setting up a competitive technical intelligence (CTI) capability that was determined to monitor changes and spot potentially interesting technological advances that could critically influence the company’s competitive position. At the same time, the CTI initiative was to facilitate sharing of internal knowledge about technical topics that were of competitive value to the company.

At first, the CTI function was established “as an experiment” under the company’s R&D unit, but it soon evolved into a program of its own, having proved its worth as part of the company’s innovation management activity. The primary focus of the CTI activities was patent monitoring, since it was the main source of detailed technical information about the innovation activity of the company’s competitors. Later on, the objectives of the CTI activities supporting innovation and product development were broadened to include:

• Keeping an eye on competitors’ activities
• Monitoring the tire technology domain and the related technologies
• Monitoring the macroeconomic trends and constructing regulatory scenarios

INNOVATION AND PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT

Similarly to other business processes, R&D and the related innovation and product life cycle management need solid support from timely and relevant Market ...