UK Competitive Intelligence Forum

A Royal Mail Case Study - Effective Ways of Working with Other Business Units

In the Summer of 2008 Royal Mail Letters restructured its entire commercial business to ensure more effective delivery of its business goals. As part of this restructure the company moved from one centralised Group strategy team and individual product and channel marketing teams to a devolved structure with multiple marketing and strategy teams at both a Group and individual market application level. The impact of this development on the Market and Competitor Intelligence team has been significant, forcing the team to find new ways to balance an even wider range of multiple, but often contradictory, stakeholder needs and demands.

The central premise of the case study presentation is around formalising effective ways of working, including establishing governance, aligning team structures, developing work plans and establishing virtual working teams. Examples will illustrate the steps proactively taken as a team to ensure that CI retained its central role in business strategy and planning in the new business structure. Be prepared for facilitated group discussion!

Addressing a professional need for practitioner-based case studies based on the application of CI, attendees will look to benefit from Caroline's experience of:

• Effectively managing and delivering against multiple stakeholder demands
• Ensuring timely progress on key cross stakeholder projects through Community of Interest Groups
• Proactively selling the benefits of tools and individual skills

About the Presenter

An insight specialist, Caroline Florence, has over 10 years experience gained from both agency and client side roles. Caroline joined Royal Mail Group from Incite Marketing Planning in July 2007 and since September 2008 has been responsible for developing the new Market & Competitor Intelligence function within Royal Mail Letters. Caroline is currently responsible for developing the application of market, sector, competitor intelligence and analysis within the business and providing planning support to identify company revenue and profitability.

	Maximising Relationships Case Study (Royal Mail)	1361 Kb
	Maximising Relationships Case Study Royal Mail (CIM).pdf	623 Kb

Competitive Intelligence Gathering: Ethical Challenges and Good Practice in association with the Institute of Business Ethics

Based on feedback from its members, the authors of a new report from the Institute of Business Ethics, entitled, 'Competitive Intelligence Gathering: Ethical challenges and good practice', will be presenting the report's main findings and general conclusions. The Institute of Business Ethics has kindly opened up the report's launch event to colleagues of SCIP.

Generating and using competitive intelligence (CI) is a key strategic activity in today's highly competitive knowledge economy. However, the practice of CI is potentially an ethical and legal minefield.

What are the ethical challenges? What can organisations do to ensure that their CI practice is in line with their ethical standards?

This new report from the IBE sets out the drivers for these challenges and examines good practice in managing them. Based on in-depth interviews with experts from a range of industries, Competitive Intelligence Gathering identifies the ethical problems that typically confront firms and other organisations engaged in CI gathering in the UK.

Attendees will be able to benefit from understanding

• The ethical challenges
• Guidelines to ensure CI ethics are in line with corporate ethical guidelines
• Good practice in managing programmes and a copy of the report

About the Presenters

Andrew Crane                                                         Dr Laura Spence
Professor of Business Ethics                              Director of Centre of Research
Schulich School of Business                               Royal Holloway
York University Toronto                                         University of London

Andrew Crane is the George R. Gardiner Professor of Business Ethics and Director of the Erivan K. Haub Program in Business and Sustainability at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada. Over the past decade he has been at the forefront of efforts to integrate responsible management issues into business school research and curricula, co-authoring Europe’s market leading textbook on business ethics and co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility. He was the founding Director of the UK's first MBA in CSR, and has taught business ethics to undergraduates, masters students, PhD students and executives.

Dr. Laura Spence is the Section Editor of the Journal of Business Ethics focusing on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. She is now the Director of the Centre for Research into Sustainability at the Royal Holloway, University of London and she was responsible for much of the primary research behind the report undertaken in the UK.

	Competitive Intelligence Ethics (IBE)	264 Kb
	Tale from 2 Forums Article (CIM)	377 Kb