Cipher and Traction Software - Research Paper Example

? Evaluation of CI analytical software (Cipher and Traction software) As B. Lumadue (2008) expressed, competitive intelligence involves gathering data about competitors, analyzing data and using the findings to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Competitive Intelligence software provides templates in order to enter the pure data and transform it to useful and meaningful information. It serves analyzing the current situation and forecasting the future of a business organization. There are many software programs in the market that reflect current technological diversity. Companies that are operating with highly competitive markets such as automotive industry or telecommunications industry would like to use Competitive Intelligence software that provides consistent information about the market like innovations, new products, prices, competitor activities, etc. Cipher is example software that provides information. On the other hand, multinational companies that have offices in all around the world would like to use software that facilitates communication among the employees especially if they conduct simultaneous projects. Traction is example software of that kind. Competitive intelligence involves gathering data about opponents; evaluate the data and using the findings to increase a cutthroat benefit in the marketplace. Competitive intelligence software makes simpler the procedure by giving templates for entering information and using models, forecasting tools, and online research to analyze competitive data. INTELLIGENCE CYCLE Five consecutive steps are involved in the Intelligence Cycle, and every step is linked with the other. We can also say that we should plan step one of planning and direction in order to plan second step, and so on. Elimination of any step will not give us the desirable results or the misguided results. The following are the steps of the Intelligence cycle, 1. Planning & Direction 2. Published Information 3. Primary Source Collection 4. Analysis & Production 5. Report & Inform We evaluated the software packages on the basis of Competitive Intelligence by keeping in mind these five intelligence cycle steps. We believe it is more accurate to note how well the software scored in the categories it fulfilled than to consider just the total score. Even then, the score reflects how comprehensively the product assisted that step of the cycle, more so than the quality of the package itself. Organizations or their CI technology users need to select the package or packages that best address their unique needs, as no two CI processes are alike. CIPHER Introduction As Cipher (2011) specifies, the business was recognized in 1996 by The Future Group. It is a consultancy firm that provides technologic solutions by putting stress on planned market study. It has two software products: Knowledge.Works and Intel Assist. Knowledge.Works Knowledge.Works is award-winning competitive intelligence product of Cipher. It is a web-based application built with a Microsoft SQL server back - end. As VIP Magazine (2010) said, Cipher’s Knowledge.Works is a relational record result that can assist a company in several componenst of the competitive intelligence cycle: data collection, aggregation, indexing, searching, analysis, reporting and collaboration. Knowledge.Works can be fully customized by each user and it is designed to meet an organization’s unique needs. It has the aptitude to focus on precise competitors or gather competitive benchmarking actions in chosen market sectors. It can also analyze competitor activities based on the regions. Knowledge.Works can track product pricing and advertising on provincial or nationwide basis. A company who uses this software has also the option to choose the sources to be searched for specific subjects. It also offers keyword tag cloud which allows the users see the hot topics, filter the ones that are more interested. It also allows the users to categorize the sources from the web, newsfeeds and internal sources. Information is also delivered at the speed of the company’s choice. The software can also provide screening and evaluating potential partners or acquisitions. It can provide competitive product launch assessments, cost and pricing benchmarking, technology tracking, strategic partnership and divesture tracking. As Fuld & Company (2006/2007) indicates, it supports all phases of the intelligence cycle and it is designed around key intelligence topics. Features Of the Knowledge.Works It offers many wizards like kit wizard, analysis wizard, reports wizard templates, conference management tool, blog manager, RSS feed manager. Kit Wizard Kit wizard provides questions the development of key intelligence questions. As Cynthia Cheng Correia (2006) states, key intelligence questions are the specific questions on which intelligence research will be conducted. Key intelligence questions can include matters like product development, operating costs of a facility, suppliers, etc. After the development of those questions, Cipher provides the creation of summary reports in MS Word or PowerPoint formats. Analysis Wizard Analysis wizard provides dynamic templates that integrate analysis into Cipher software workflow. Each user can personalize the wizard by choosing keywords, specific competitors, consumers, resources to collect data. Report Wizard Report wizard also provides templates such as ad hoc, SWOT analysis, company profile, product assessment, and market analysis. All of the reports are customizable since the users have the option to create their own report sections. Reports can be shown in MS Word and PowerPoint formats. Conference Management Tool Conference management wizard allows access for the employees of a company on web – based format. It allows gathering information from trade shows and conference events. Blog Manager Wizard Blog manager wizard allows to its users publishing articles and even managing internal blogs. RSS Feed Manager RSS feed manager wizard allows to subscribe to RSS feeds in respective industry sectors. Users can use this wizard to access their favorite websites in real times. Those feeds can be moved into existing reports or can be assigned to key intelligence questions created by the users. Other Features The following are some other special features of the Knowledge.Works. 1. Knowledge.Works also provides other features like tracking tasks and due dates. Thus, the software is also very useful for multinational companies that includes cross functional teams working in different locations. 2. In addition, users can use automatic summary text summarization to receive the summaries of the contents. Customization is also available for those summaries. Users can choose the length and the focus of the summary.On the other hands; it also provides news alert based on the user’s interest. Additionally, Knowledge.Works allows manual entry of written documents and reports. 3. The software also offers many additional services like translation service and discussion forum. As Knowledge.Works searches global resources, it also offers translation services to the users for international source channels. 4. Discussion forum that the users have the possibility to start conversations, take other opinions, and ask questions. At the same time, it offers a dashboard in its home page that allows users to post information, images, and graphics, charts which optimize users’ interests and affect each other. 5. Knowledge.Works’ services can be purchased separately or combined as a bundled solution. A bundled solution consists of Competitive Intelligence resources, customized software design and support, early warning intelligence, and tactical intelligence. Cipher continues to develop Knowledge.Works by adding new features to the product in order to meet market and consumer demands. Intel Assist Cipher’s another customer intelligence software product is Intel Assist. It is specifically designed for finance professionals. Features Of Intel Assist The following are the main features of the Intel Assist. 1. Similar to Knowledge.Works, it provides competitor and market information with a user-friendly reporting tool. As financial professionals need to achieve accurate information, it provides fast and filtered information to its users. In addition, it offers customizable search alerts. 2. Intel Assist provides customizable information resources. In addition, it has similar features of Knowledge.Works like automatic text summarizer, key intelligence topic framework, information alerts. It also provides industry specific RSS feeds and customizable user interface and reporting function including PDF, MS Word, and HTML publishing engines. Content of the information is reviewed, filtered and pre-categorized by Cipher’s professional team. As Northern Lighthouse (2010) indicates, Cipher products have been used by public organizations and private companies. In addition, they help the companies to concentrate their resources in their operational activities and research activities since they are simple, easy to maintain and they allow smooth and fast development of user programs. Summary Cipher continues to add new features and tools in response to market and user demand. Wizards for reporting and analysis allow Cipher to reach a broader audience while also “educating” users to take full advantage of the tools at their disposal. Cipher is also introducing IntelAssist in September 2006, which will offer individual CI professionals a scaled down, cost-effective, stand-alone version of Knowledge.Works. TRACTION Introduction As Traction Software (2011) web site indicates, the company was founded in 1996, it launched its first product in 2002 and has released several generations of Java-based Traction server, Traction software development kit, and client accessories. Products It has several products such as Traction TeamPage, Traction Communicator, Traction Feed Reader, and Traction Fast Search. All of the products are built on the same platform and they use the same Traction hypertext platform. Each product has a unique feature. Traction Communicator Traction Communicator has the lower cost among all the other products. It is limited to three projects and two different users. Traction Team Page On the other hand, Traction TeamPage supports unlimited projects and it is licensed based on the number of named login accounts. It is integrated with QL2 module to gather and publish information automatically from the web. Traction Fast Search As Traction Software (2011) web site indicates Traction Attivio Search Module extends Traction’s search model to over 370 document formats for files that are stored in TeamPage web folders and for the ones that are attached in TeamPage posts. It offers several features to the users. One of them is page ranking. In this feature it sorts out the research from the newest to the oldest which can be determined by the comments or numbers of labels. In addition, it can show the results according to the similar words. The search can also be done by keywords and entities such as projects, authors, companies, personal names, locations. It also provides multi-term selection such as and, or, not expressions. It also provide “find similar“button which helps to search related content. Finally it can provide searches by content types like comments and files. Traction Feed Reader Traction Feed Reader is an add-on to TeamPage which can read RSS and Atom feeds and it can automatically publish posts into selected TeamPage projects. As the competitive intelligence professional needs to access to the information very fast and on time, Feed Reader provides instantly publishing opportunities and offers to deliver information. As Traction Software (2011) web site says, Traction Instant Publisher is another feature of the software that includes a Windows native rich text editor (with controls for bulleted/numbered lists, heading styles, font colors, and bold/italic/underline font styles), drag and drop support publishing from desktop applications, an insert attachment tool, right click publishing from Microsoft Internet Explorer, and a screen capture tool that lets you capture any portion of your Windows desktop. As Bill Ives (2009) says, software additions enable more of the social side of work to be transparent, measured, enhanced, and contribute to increased enterprise performance. Features of Traction Software The following are the brief discussion about the features of the traction software. 1. Traction software offers to its users to integrate collaboration, communication, action tracking, social tagging, discussion, and social networking. The TeamPage platform facilitates discussion and sharing of information. It provides that feature by emails, HTML form or direct posts on Traction. Information can also be customized by labeling it credible or relevant. The software also provides the users to comment about each post. 2. Through the software, it is also possible to open a private space and select the users who can have permission to read the posts. 3. Traction does not generate intelligence since it does not use some famous norms like SWOT or other market research formats. It simply provides discussion platforms for competitive intelligence professionals. But it provides to search information and gives opportunity to the users commenting on each paragraph by embedding additional personal reviews. In this way, users have the chance to create their own analysis after labeling the interesting information. 4. On the other hand, Omix provides the users to select some paragraphs or comments to be exported. In addition, the software has new print functions to remove some paragraphs or comments out of the content. 5. Traction software also allows to the individuals to see their action plans, the status of the shared projects, team workload, individual progress, team progress. Thus, it is a very useful program for a team manager in order to measure the progress and failure of a project or of a specific person within the team. In addition, it increases collaboration since a team member who finished his task can help to his colleagues who have not finished it yet by watching his progress. 6. Traction software also provides to post meeting notes, assign actions items, and write comments to update a group of people on the status of their action items. Thus, it increases transparency and effective flow of communication. In addition, it provides speed to work. It gives opportunity to a group of people to help each other of projects if they have knowledge to contribute. Summary Traction continues to add and enhance the features that keep up with current information. Comparing to the other competitive intelligence software, Traction provides a lower entry cost. In addition, it is very easy to install it. Pharmaceutical, banking, consulting, manufacturing, shipping companies, universities, non-profit organizations and IT agencies prefer to use Traction software. Traction software is very useful for international companies that conduct simultaneous projects or for multinational companies that employ more than thousands of people since it provides an efficient flow of communication and networking. Conclusion As Fleisher and Blenkhorn (2001) stated, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War may represent the origins of Competitive Intelligence. The Art of War argues the importance of knowing enemies and yourself in order to survive. We can also interpret today’s business life as a war. There are several companies producing the same products, offering the same type of services. Competitive Intelligence software products provide relevant information to the companies that need to develop competitive advantages to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Cipher software and Traction software applications are among the best software but they have differences. First of all Cipher’s Knowledge.Works is an integrated program. It aims to collect data from various secondary resources and provides personalized research methods for each user. It can filter the selected topics, companies, industries depending on the user’s choice. It can provide the information at the speed of a user preference. It has research norms included to the program like SWOT, Porter’s five forces, etc. On the other hand, Traction offers additional features to be added on the platform. Each feature provides different benefits for the users. It is a good primary resource provider, since it offers many features like adding comments, embedding paragraphs to the information. But it does not include research norms. Users gather sources and create their own reports. The report is only the beginning of the hunt and the purchase process. It will guide you to examine the product and how it works and functions in good detail. But remember that almost all the intelligence technology offers the same experience. So you need to consider your the maintenance and livability issues after the first few months. Will this package continue to grow with you or will it become a maintenance headache? One firm’s dream can be another’s painful experience, and vice versa. So it’s up to you, but I suggest on the basis of the comparison that the Cipher suits best. REFERENCES B. Lumadue (2008). Business.com web site. Bill Ives (2009). The appgab.com web site. Cipher (2011). Cipher software company web site. Cynthia Cheng Correia (2006). Competitive Intelligence: A Practical Primer for Location Intelligence. Directions Magazine. Fleisher and Blenkhorn (2001). Managing frontiers incompetitive intelligence. Westport: Quorum Books. Traction Software (2011). Traction software company web site. VIP Magazine (2010). Review of Knowledge.Works' Competitive Intelligence Software. Fuld Company (2006/2007). Intelligence Software Report. Technology Risk and Reward. A Review of 17 Software/Technology Offerings In The Competitive Intelligence Arena. The Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals association (2002). SCIP web site. Northern Lighthouse (2010). North – Lighthouse web site. Read More