Information management in the global environment.

Any organisation, regardless of its profile, size or field of activity has the need to manage internal and external information. A great number of big enterprises have developed their own approaches of economic intelligence to address the issue, which is suggested in a similar way too to small-sized enterprises.

Throughout civilization history, it has always been necessary to obtain and protect valuable information in order to avoid unwanted dissemination to competitors. The current globalisation process, such as spreading of information and communication technologies, appearance of formal and informal networks, acceleration of economic changes, evolution of the relations between manufacturers, final products and providers, the introduction of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), shortening of the products life cycles, among other many things lead to permanent changes in the daily management of enterprises and their needs for information. All this is a challenge for both large-sized companies and small-sized ones. However, the available information sources are not the same for a large-sized enterprise than for a small-sized one. Also, financial capacity and human resources differ in both types of organisation.

Technology monitoring and competitive intelligence Systems are as necessary for the 21st-century companies as quality management systems were for the companies dating from the late 20th century.

In order to respond to the main challenge of being able to generate systematically high-impact strategic innovations, a technology monitoring and intelligence system is understood as a part of the integrated management of the organisation. Thus it is in charge of supporting R&D actions helping the organisation to strengthen its decision-making processes.

The goal of being well informed when making a decision is achieved by carrying out many detailed and systematic tasks. Those could be listed through a combination of the following three groups listed below:

1. Analysis of information: identify trends, analysis of reactions and opinions, strategy analysis, comparisons, assessments, identify weak points (bottlenecks, deficiencies of any kind, finances), identify opportunities or potential partners or even warns and alerts.
2. Paying attention to users, competitors, providers, technologies, standard regulations, new customers, investors, markets, or regulations.
3. With a view to potential partnerships, mergers, acquisitions, new strategies, substitute or alternative products, the launching of new products or marketing and image campaigns, and R&D projects.

More information: https://en.ovtt.org/technology-watch