Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Understanding that the method of creating this daily reports left large
gaps of business intelligence unaccounted for, the company began devel-
opment of a corporate-wide information retrieval system using informa-
tion auditing techniques.
Lincoln discovered that most executive needs were not for informa-
tion on the corporate database. In general, the executives of Lincoln
got their business intelligence from the various news sources. The tech-
nology group was able to create an automated morning report that
retrieved, searched, and correlated textual external data to assist staff.
The morning report's intelligence comes from a variety of external
sources, including the
New York Times
and
Business Week
. It has given
Lincoln the ability the analyze information from a wide variety of other
sources as well.
The morning report is viewed by Lincoln as a BI gathering tool that
feeds information into their executive support systems. Lincoln has seen
some significant productivity improvements. Prior to attending meet-
ings, staff members can review the pertinent information, negating the
need to brief meeting attendees so that meetings can move forward more
quickly. Perhaps the greatest benefit of all is improved communications
within the company, permitting key executives to make better decisions
and facilitating the company's avoidance of the inevitable filtering effect
that so often happens as information makes its way through the corpo-
rate hierarchy.
Lincoln uses their executive support system for strategic planning and com-
petitive analyses. Along with external information, Lincoln management can
analyze internal sales data, competitor activities, field reports from sales staff,
as well as competitor's financial data to determine the best way to compete.
Competitive analysis is a major component of Lincoln's planning pro-
cess. Using the information entered by the salespeople in the field, Lincoln
builds a profile of each competitor's strengths and weaknesses. This is done
by identifying the factors that are considered critical for each line of busi-
ness, and then ranking each competitor's capabilities in the same area. At
the same time, the same criteria are used to rank Lincoln's own capabili-
ties in those same areas. Using a side-by-side comparison of competitor
versus itself, Lincoln can evaluate whether or not they are weak in the crit-
ical factors needed for success in any particular product line. If a perceived
weakness is noted, Lincoln formulates a plan to strengthen the company
in that particular area. At the same time, the marketing plan is modified
to focus on the key strengths while minimizing the weaknesses. One of
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