Babette Bensoussan: How Good Is Your Strategy?

Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics
Babette Bensoussan
Babette Bensoussan

Mutters – How good is your strategy?

Have you heard ….. if you want a decent strategy, you need a firm grasp of reality, which means avoiding bad strategies. How do you define bad strategies? According to Richard Rumelt, author of “Good Strategy Bad Strategy“, they are characterised by one or more of the following factors:

  1. Gibberish mugFluff –  defined as a form of gibberish masquerading as strategic concepts or arguments.
  2. Failure to face the challenge – if the challenge can't be defined, that particular quality of the strategy can't be assessed, and then improved or rejected.
  3. Mistaking goals for strategies – arguably this is the most common error ( take a look at this video on “What is Strategy” for more insights).
  4. Bad strategic objectives – the challenge for senior executives is to set out subgoals that are both relevant and practical for the chosen strategy.

Make the above factors part of your strategic reviews and you may avoid some of the prevalent pitfalls!

Adapted from: “What strategy isn't”, Mike Riddiford, Editor, CEO Forum http://www.ceoforum.com.au

Who’s Who in Commercial Intelligence: Babette Bensoussan

Alpha A-D, Commercial Intelligence
Babette Bensoussan
Babette Bensoussan

abette Bensoussan is Managing Director of The MindShifts Group, a company specialising in competitive intelligence, strategic planning and strategic marketing projects in the Australasia region. Babette is widely recognised and sought after for her international expertise in competitive analysis, and has provided mentoring and training to executives and organizations to assist with the delivery of the highest level of knowledge and implementation of competitive intelligence.

Recognised internationally in 2006 by being given the highest and most prestigious U.S. award in the field of Competitive Intelligence – the SCIP Meritorious Award, Babette is the first Australian and first female international recipient to be honoured with this award.

Babette has shared her knowledge of competitive business analysis by co-authoring two books, Strategic and Competitive Analysis and Business and Competitive Analysis Effective Application of New and Classic Methods have both been the top selling books in this field since being published in 2003 and 2007 respectively. Her third book Analysis without Paralysis: 10 Tools to Make Better Strategic Decisions was released in June 2008 and The Financial Times Guide to Analysis for Managers in the near future.

Review: Strategic and Competitive Analysis–Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business Competition

5 Star, Intelligence (Commercial)

Amazon Page
Amazon Page

5.0 out of 5 stars Selected as “the” text for government all-source analysts,

January 13, 2004
Craig S. Fleisher
Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links.

Rather than outline the wonderful aspects of this book, which other reviewers have done so ably, I will just say that I rank the authors up there with Ben Gilad (Israel), Mats Bjore (Sweden), and Jan Herring, Dick Klavens/Brad Ashton, and Leonard Fuld (USA), and we have made this book “the” text for the annual government all-source analysis training that centers on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT).

This book, in combination with Ben Gilad's Early Warning: Using Competitive Intelligence to Anticipate Market Shifts, Control Risk, and Create Powerful Strategies, the Leonard Fuld's The New Competitor Intelligence: The Complete Resource for Finding, Analyzing, and Using Information about Your Competitors, Dick Klavens and Brad Ashton's Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology: Technical Intelligence for Business, and Earth Intelligence Network's forthcoming edited book, “Commercial Intelligence: From Moral Green to Golden Peace,” are the essential five books for any business intelligence professional or anyone seeking to understand best in class business intelligence.

Four of my own books may also be helpful as strategic context:
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political–Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World

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