Recently, I have been reflecting on the past few months and how work environments and client needs have changed. I returned to thinking about the fundamentals of competitive intelligence — the concepts I was taught in my training — and how these have become more important to me as I talk to my clients in not so ‘business as usual’ times.
I was taught that competitive intelligence is about gathering information, then analyzing and synthesizing that information, to provide actionable insights to my clients, who are often overloaded and time-poor lawyers. I was trained to communicate, to ask probing questions, to adapt my strategy as the search evolves, and to be creative in my approach to problem solving. One key skill of intelligence professionals is to be flexible as the journey develops. This particular COVID journey is still evolving, and we are working in nontraditional environments, sometimes without our regular tools at hand.
