I attended the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals' annual conference in Chicago last week. During the three days, I attended several classes and talked with many members of the business intelligence community including a few customers. I thought I would pass along some observations from the show.

1. Ethics is always an important topic for SCIP members. Collecting information on competitors is a sticky topic for many companies and understanding what is acceptable for a competitive intelligence professional is difficult. One way to avoid ethical quandaries is to use sources available publicly, either on the Internet or from the U.S. government. Many companies that inquire about Zepol’s U.S. Customs trade data tool, TradeIQ, are relieved to find out that we receive all of our data through the United States’ Freedom of Information Act directly from the U.S. government.
   
   
2. Proving a return on investment ensures that the value of CI professionals is measurable in their organizations. Value for competitive intelligence professionals is more about what they can do with the information they collect than the price of the service they use. I spoke with several people who reiterated this point by talking about how the best tools they use do not just spit out data, but transform it into organized information that creates knowledge. Knowledge allows CI professionals to show executives actionable intelligence that shows real, balance sheet impact.
   
   
3. Michael Treacy gave a rousing keynote speech that hit home. Mr. Treacy talked specifically about how CI professionals can use the fundamentals he detailed in his book Double Digit Growth to grow their organizations. Understanding how business intelligence departments can provide the knowledge that executives need to make informed, smart decisions about the future of their companies is essential to achieve sustainable growth instead of stagnant results. While luck is part of how companies succeed, a methodology of choosing the correct path by allowing ideas to compete multiplies success in the long term.

Often companies come to Zepol to find a way to look up Bills of Lading for their company’s shipments. They want to track how their shipments are being processed by U.S. Customs and ensure that their suppliers and transportation providers (NVOCCs, freight forwarders, customs brokers, and carriers) are correctly moving their shipments through their supply chain. This compliance work is a continuous task that saves them hours of work finding shipment data in their own systems.

Monitor Imports

U.S. Customs trade data tools, like our TradeIQ product, make it easy for companies to not only monitor their own shipments, but also see what their competitors are doing. Zepol has set up an easy-to-use interface that allows users to save their monthly searches and reduce work by pulling the newest data (up to 3 days after U.S. Customs clearance) quickly. By researching how shipments are entering the United States, companies are able to:

• Compare how they are declaring products compared to their competitors
• Benchmark their shipment volume against their competition
• Know if their suppliers are working with other U.S. manufacturers
• Ensure their NVOCCs and other transportation providers are meeting the requirements of their contracts
• Evaluate and find new suppliers

Below is a video demonstration of how our customers find imports for companies:

Last Friday, the U.S. Census Bureau released the trade data for February and the results are mixed. While the United States narrowed the trade gap from $59 billion in February 2008 to $28 billion this year, imports and exports were both significantly down.

Imports suffered more than exports compared to 2008 and even 2007. Carriers and transportation service providers are feeling the squeeze, as vessel and air imports dropped 38% and 24% respectively.

All export measures dropped around 20% from February 2007. This confirms that economic recovery will require more than just a stabilization of the United States; trading partners will also need to recapture their growth.

Finally, you will notice that the top 5 largest trade deficits with the United States saw large decreases as American consumers have pulled back.

I have also included the top 5 trade surpluses for some perspective.

To learn more about trade data and dig into U.S. Census data and U.S. Customs data further, request a free trial at www.zepol.com.

One the biggest ways that Zepol's users utilize trade data in their companies is for competitive intelligence. They track their competitors and understand what suppliers other companies in their industry are working with. In addition, they look at the products that they import to better understand their marketplace. Competitive intelligence, at its core, is about making better decisions by having accurate, actionable information.

The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) defines competitive intelligence as:

"Competitive intelligence is a systematic and ethical program for gathering, analyzing, and managing any combination of Data, Information, and Knowledge concerning the Business environment in which a company operates that, when acted upon, will confer a significant Competitive advantage or enable sound decisions to be made. Its primary role is Strategic early warning."

Trade data, specifically U.S. Customs data, is a great example of a competitive intelligence resource. The best trade data tools allow users to gather, analyze, and manage shipment information within a robust application and that is extremely important for companies involved in international trade. This data allows companies to make smarter decisions based off of accurate information, and the companies that implement trade data into their decision process make better decisions about product development, sourcing, sales, and trade management.

The final piece that competitive intelligence professionals use U.S. Customs trade data is as a reliable early warning system. Below are several examples from trade data users on how they use U.S. Customs data to warn them before it is too late:

• Within days they can see that a competitor has shifted to another supplier. If they shifted to new country they can even estimate the price of the products using U.S. Census data.
• They can spot prototype shipments months before products hit store shelves, fully understanding where it will be manufactured.
• Seeing shipment trends that can show if a company is forecasting lower or higher sales in the coming months, deducing when products will be available on the market.
• They know if a new competitor has entered their space allowing them to take action quickly.