2006 Colloque Hanoi French Business Intelligence Policy

7/30/2019 2006 Colloque Hanoi French Business Intelligence Policy

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Franck BULINGE, PhD

Scientific Supervisor for Master in Business Intelligence and Knowledge management,

Centre for Studies and Research in Applied Management, CERAM Sophia Antipolis, France

[email protected]

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to present the French policy for Business Intelligence (CI), in

particular in the field of education. After summarizing twelve years of experience, Ill expose

strengths and the weaknesses of French CI community, and the political solutions which have

been adopted in order to optimize the French national CI system. I will then present the

French educational framework destined to develop a homogeneous educational system. I will

present finally, as an example, the strategic and scientific foundations of a master in CI and

knowledge management.

1 Twelve years experience : The feedback

French CI was officially born in 1994 with a report published by the French Commissariat

gnral du Plan : Intelligence conomique et stratgie des entreprises (Business

Intelligence and company strategy). The purpose of this report was to recognize business

intelligence as a fundamental concept, methodology and tool, within the context of the new

economy of information and knowledge. The French government decided to launch a

movement toward a new way of managing strategic information.

Since CI was known by a few individuals in a reduced number of companies, as technology

or information scanning, it was necessary to generalize the practice of information networksbetween companies and administrations, in order to optimize the collection, the analysis, the

dissemination and the operational use of information. To advance from individual to

collective intelligence, both the issue and the goal of a national CI policy was to maintain a

strategic position in the worldwide economical competition, by using and sharing information

and knowledge.

Henri Martres report was a small first step on the long way to a national cultural change.

Sharing information was not, and is not yet, a natural feature of French business culture.

Information was, and is still considered as a power asset which must not be shared in order to

preserve ones position in the organization (companies or administrations). As showed earlier

(Bulinge, 2002), individualism is a primary characteristic of French culture. Therefore CI, as anetwork centric approach for collective intelligence, was like a UFO in the managers sky.


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Thus it was illusionary to expect any change before several years and without a strong and

constant effort.

Nine years after Martres report, CI was still cracking out of its shell). For example, it was

impossible to agree on a unique definition: more than 25 individual definitions were identified

(Bulinge, Larivet, 2002), and it can be said that there were as many definitions as authors, in

the small French CI community. It was like the tower of Babel, and the semantic controversy

was the main wall between theory and practice. During those years, education and research

were differently developed by each school.

In 2003, the situation was heterogeneous and quite chaotic, so Prime Minister gave Bernard

Carayon, a French republican deputy, the mission to audit the French CI community. In his

report, Bernard Carayon denounced a lack of unity and coherence in the educational programs

for CI. At the same time, he underlined the discrepancy between educational supply and the

real needs of companies.

French CI had been built without planning; its diversity had become a weakness. Studies in CI

were victims of this weakness, as far as companies were not able to have a clear vision of

what they could do with CI as a concept. Most schools provided a theoretical courses

incapable of satisfying operational needs, when these needs were identified (which was rarely

the case). In order to clarify and define the CI profession, there were two starting points:

- to make decision makers aware of the importance of CI,

- to initiate managers to the process.

Unfortunately, the diversity of language kept them from understanding and from clearly

profiling human resources within their organizations.

Moreover, CI suffered from a centred vision on the part of researchers who omitted to

consider the diversity, the specific cultural factors and the micro-economic reality of

companies. They were developing models inappropriate to individual situations.

Furthermore, the French government itself was qualified as blind and without strategic

priority, and Carayon declared : The French state has neither defined strategic activities

in terms of sovereignty, employment, influence-, nor the technologies attached to these

activities, in particular hardware. In the same way, it failed to evaluate the forces and the

strengths of national research, as well as those of French firms in these domains

2 - A public policy

As a result of Carayons report, the French Prime Minister decided to implement a national

policy in CI. President Chirac designated a national director for CI, Alain Juillet, former head

of intelligence in the French secret service (DGSE), and the former director of diversecompanies, of which the last one was Mark and Spencers. At the head of a small staff, Alain

Juillet began to coordinate the implementation of CI, and to organize a national model.

Today, the mission consists in:

- disseminating a culture of CI

- helping the SMEs

- protecting national industry from strategic dependence

- protecting technological and industrial capital

- providing information and knowledge about the future in order to reduce uncertainty


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French CI political organization

A national network

Prime Minister

Cabinet Director

General Secretary of

Defense

Head of CI

Alain JUILLET

Permanent Group for CI

Representatives

- Department of the Interior

- Department of Economy-Department of Foreign affairs

- Department of Defense- Department of Agriculture

Embassies Central

Administrations

Regional Administrations

National Committee for CI

Cabinet Directors

- Department of the Interior- Department of Economy

-Department of Foreign affairs- Department of Defense- Department of Agriculture

Consulting Commissions and

experts supports

- Education- Research

- Information and security

- Professionals of CI

Universities

Trading and industries

chambers

General Secretary

of Defense

Head of CI

Alain JUILLET

Regions

Professional federations and

associations

Administrationsdedicated to finance and

support innovation

Department of

Defense

Department of the

Interior

Department of

Foreign Affairs


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3 The French educational framework for CI

In spring 2004, Alain Juillet created a commission for education, inviting 14 experts to work

at the elaboration of a national framework destined to become the label for CI studies.

After nine months of brainstorming and knowledge management, the team published theRfrentiel de formation en intelligence conomique, established as the five pillars of CI

knowledge as it should be taught.

Framework for CI education

1 - International environment and competitiveness

Both the society of information and the economy of immaterial are changing the traditional order of economical exchanges.The information and knowledge market is a new exchange and trading space. CI gives the ability to change information into

operational and strategic knowledge.

Rethinking strategies of the companies and governments, CI is considered as a cultural and operational response toglobalisation in the society of information.

Teaching goals: to identify and analyse geopolitics and economic keys in order to guide stakeholders and decision makers.

Topics: Theory of information; Globalisation; Geopolitics and geo-economy; Organizations of international trading; Nongovernmental organisations and alternative movements ; Competition and economic warfare; Technologies of information

and knowledge; Knowledge and information intensive firms; Information market; CI research; National CI systems andorganizations; Global risk management; Informational risks; Economical crime; Economical defence and security; History ofCI; Compared National systems of CI

Keywords: Globalisation, competitiveness; multinational firms; geo-economics; data; information; knowledge; technologies

of information; knowledge management; risk management

2- CI and organizations

CI must be taken by firms as a model of management. But scientific studies show that they have some difficulty acquiring

and implenting on regular basis. The phenomenon was identified as a cultural problem. It will evolve over a long time,through education.

Teaching goals:

- To define the stakes of CI as a success key factor to achieve strategic goals.

- To organize and quicken internal conferences to advise the employees and managers within firms and administrations

- To form, carry out, supervise and control a CI project

Topics: Strategy, information and Decision making; Strategic analysis; CI project management; Communication andpsychology of organisations; Network centric management; Ethics, rights, legality of CI; CI organizational and operational

Process; CI marketing; Inside and outside CI actors; Internal audit of information and CI; Evaluation, indicators, instrumentpanels

Keywords: strategy, analysis, success key factors; decision making; CI project; right, ethics, networks, outsourcing, audit,evaluation

3 - Information and knowledge management

Intelligence cycle is considered as the heart of CI process: defining the needs, collecting and analysing data, disseminating

information and knowledge to decision makers.

Teaching goals:

- To identify and define the information problems and needs of the organisation

- To organize the data-to-information and knowledge process

- To manage the relationship between information collectors, analysts and decision makers.

Topics: Strategic analysis and informational needs; Sourcing: typology of information, identification and use of sources;Methods, techniques and tools; Right, ethics and deontology; Psychology and human factor in interrelationship; Multicultural

factors; Intelligence analysis; Decision aid; Groupware; Knowledge management


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Keywords: Intelligence cycle, Knowledge management, strategic analysis, information sourcing, scanning methods and tools;right, ethics and deontology

4 - Security and defence of immaterial patrimony

Identify and protect the competitive assets of the organizations.

Teaching goals:

- To define and organize the strategy of information security

- To manage informational risks

- To prevent and manage informational crisis

Topics: Information and knowledge patrimony; Intellectual and industrial property; Strategy and use of patents; Securitypolicy and information systems; Management of crisis

Keywords: intellectual and industrial property, patents, trade mark, copyright, infringement, security, informational crisis

5 - Influence and counter-influence

In a context of hypercompetition, information is considered as an arm used for disinformation, intoxi-cation, and

destabilization. It is necessary to identify the risks and threats that can affect the strategy of a firm or a government.

Lobbying is largely used in the strategy of influence by firms or by groups of interest. It can determine the decisions of

international organization at the expense of firms regarding the traditional competitive rules.

Teaching goals:

- To identify information risks (disinformation, rumors, perception management, intoxication)

- To identify and understand the strategies of influence and counter-influence

- To use information and knowledge as offensive and defensive strategic tools

Topics: Strategies of influence and counter-influence; Methods, techniques and tools of influence; Psychology of

manipulation and disinformation; Perception management; Offensive and defensive use of information and knowledge;Lobbying; To form and carry out a strategy of influence and counter-influence; Evaluate and manage the risks of influence

Keywords: influence, lobbying, disinformation, stakeholders, destabilisation, non governmental organizations, rumour

However, as far as the framework is a guide for developing homogeneous national programs,

it is not the ultimate mean to become the best course in the charts. It gives indications to

develop the right learning contents, but it doesnt give the way of the good strategy, methods

and tools.

Therefore, each school is free to develop its own method, to build its own strategy and its own

pedagogic engineering. Even if they follow the framework, the difference between them will

be in the pedagogic approach of CI.

4 - Strategies for CI education: the case of CERAM Master Business intelligence and

Knowledge Management

CERAM Sophia Antipolis is a high business school situated near Nice, in the south of France.

It was the first school to create a post graduate course in CI (1996). Alice Guilhon, Executive

Director, and I, were members of the commission for CI education. In 2005, she asked me to

perform a reengineering of the program in order to apply the framework. But it was not the

only factor to recruit me. I was supposed to have developed an original pedagogic approach

based on a strategic analysis that gave me the success key factors to increase the good name

of CERAM. In France, with some 75 schools in CI, an increase of 100% within three years,

competition has grown up and become severe. CERAM needs to maintain its place in the top

five published by SMBG, a consulting cabinet specialized in recruitment.

Our strategy is based on the combination between academic research, operational needs and

employment opportunities. CI cant be tough without a clear vision of firms real and


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potential needs, nor a clear vision of employment realities. The followings are considered as

hypothesizes which are being experimented since one year:

- CI, as a new emergent model of management, must not be considered as a revolutionbut as a necessary evolution of the management, considering the changes due to

globalisation. So we have to link the teaching program to the traditional field of

strategy by implementing methods and techniques of CI (Bulinge, 2002). By this way,

it will be easier for decision makers and recruiters to recognize the goals and schemes

of this course, and its contribution to the success of strategy, regarding their own

human resources references.

- Until now, and considering the Carayons report, CI courses were too theoretical andinappropriate to the operational needs of companies. Its necessary to know what is

CI?, but it is more important for managers to answer these questions: how does it

work? Who, where, what, when and how to do it? Indeed, theory and philosophy of

information management are necessary to develop intellectual knowledge, but it is not

enough to manage on the field. So CI must also be learned through an operational and

technical approach: learning by doing in order to develop appropriate skills.

- The main need identified in companies does not concern information collection butintelligence analysis and knowledge management. Since collection methods,

techniques and tools have been well developed, and are now on the way to be

mastered, decision makers are flooded by massive and fatal information. Thus,

information has become more a problem than a solution. Today, there is a real lack of

capability to evaluate process, analyse information and change it into operational and

strategic knowledge. Its obvious that intelligence analysis has become the main

priority for those who have crossed the first step of collection. Unfortunately,

intelligence analysis was, until now, neither taught at school nor studied by

researchers. Assuming this situation three years ago, it has become obvious thatanalysis is a success key factor, giving to CI course a competitive advantage for two or

three years.

- One can observe an evolution of the learning market: the need of selective knowledgeand professional training is growing up. It becomes necessary to adapt the courses to

this evolution by creating short modules offering specialized topics: technical

information collection; human information collection; psychology of intelligence

analysis; strategies of analysis, methods, techniques and tools (MTT) for analysts,

MTT for knowledge management, intercultural business negotiations These topics

must be organized into two to five days training or intensive courses.

- As far as the CI companies needs are not well identified, it is necessary to develop CItraining as a further course, a double competence as we say in France. So studentsmust include CI to their main knowledge as a strategic asset for employment:

engineer+CI, biologist+CI, manager+CI

Conclusion

The goal of this article was to present the French policy for CI and its implementation in the

field of education. Politics is not an exact science, so it is necessary to experiment this model

in live, and to confront it with the complexity of social interactions.

It is also too early for having any conclusion about the experiment of a new educationalframework, even if the companies and the French CI community have welcomed this new


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model of training. The first feed back from the recruitment of the next year class yet shows a

real interest for the intelligence analysis course, but we need one more year to confirm the

evolution of main indicators (national charts, students rate of employment, work experience

periods offered by companies, good name of the course, number of applicants, alumni)

Indeed, if French CI cannot be taken as a universal model, because of its complexity and

uncertainty, it can be seen as an example of experience by the countries expecting to

implement their own national CI policy.

Bibliography

Bulinge F. (2002), Pour une culture de linformation dans les PMO : un modle incrmental

dintelligence conomique. Thse de doctorat en Sciences de linformation et de la

communication. Universit de Toulon et du Var ; http://bulinge.univ-tln.fr

Carayon B. (2003), Intelligence conomique, comptitivit et cohesion sociale, rapport au

Premier ministre, juin 2003

Larivet S. (2002), Les ralits de lintelligence conomique en Pme , Thse de doctorat en

sciences de gestion, Universit de Toulon et du Var

Martre H. (1994), Intelligence conomique et stratgie des entreprises, La Documentation

franaise

Web sites

www.ceram.fr

www.intelligence-economique.gouv.fr/

http://epices.univ-tln.fr

2006 Colloque Hanoi French Business Intelligence Policy

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