Building competitive advantage – key takeaways from the February Community Session
14th February 2023

Most organisations today have competitive intelligence capabilities, they just aren’t necessarily formally named "competitive intelligence". Understanding the competitive environment, the opportunities, and the challenges that an organisation faces is essential for both survival and growth.

Many information leaders are either already directly involved in supporting intelligence activities within their organisation or, if not, they are exploring how they can become more involved. Our February 2023 Community session was an opportunity to discuss what competitive intelligence looks like in reality and how information leaders can have more impact.

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Findings from the "Let's talk talent" Community session
18th January 2023

Finding, attracting and retaining talent is critical to the success of any business. Given the current labour market and a dearth of people with the right skills, aptitude and attitudes, securing the right talent is a major challenge for many information leaders.

The January 2023 Community session was an opportunity to discuss these challenges with Simon Burton of CB Resourcing and explore ideas to address these issues.

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Are you holding your vendors to account? Key takeaways from the December Community session
20th December 2022

Vendor management is one of the most potent ways of demonstrating your value to the wider organisation, yet it is something many clients struggle to implement.  

Catch up with our recent Community Session "Holding Vendors to Account" to find out how to build a solid foundation on which to create meaningful service-level agreements and performance targets for your vendors.

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Key takeaways from the "Cost Reduction Strategies" Community session
29th November 2022

Reducing costs as a tactical, "knee-jerk" reaction to unfavourable economic indicators risks significant business disruption and can, in the long run, be an expensive exercise.  

As the discussion with our Information Leaders revealed; successful cost reduction strategies involve a complex combination of "Stakeholder engagement", "Demand Management", "Knowing the market" and "Proactive vendor management".

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The importance of Benchmarking
28th October 2022

Benchmarking provides critical insights into the performance of your strategy and team. Yet information leaders struggle to find reliable and consistent mechanisms to compare themselves to their peers.

Read about the challenges and benefits of addressing benchmarking, from Jinfo’s October Community session.

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Three takeaways from the "Let's talk suppliers" Community session
11th October 2022

When it comes to supplier engagement, good preparation is vital, proving the adage “fail to prepare, prepare to fail”. Knowing your business, understanding the perception of value and broad market knowledge enables a productive dialogue supported by multiple scenarios for a negotiation.

September’s Community Session provided an opportunity to discuss the key preparations you need to successfully work with your supplier partners to deliver successful outcomes. Whilst we discussed a range of techniques and challenges, one thing was clear: you should always start these conversations with the end in mind.

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Map your stakeholders
9th February 2022

Strategic stakeholder engagement is far more than "communicating with stakeholders". It requires that you understand your landscape of stakeholders, their current beliefs and attitudes, and their unique goals... and then devise a strategy for engaging with them to both influence and partner with them. The starting point for this process is a Stakeholder Map. The activity in this article guides you through this simple and powerful process.

View the recorded webinar "Stakeholder mapping", where we walk through the parts of this activity and provide more examples of how clients have used their Stakeholder Maps.

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Centre of Excellence (step five - your evolution work plan)
11th August 2021

A practical work plan is essential for turning your vision as a Centre of Excellence into a reality. Previous steps in the Focus on Centre of Excellence walked through analysing and identifying opportunities and gaps in your services, relationships with stakeholders and team characteristics. In the final part of our series, we guide you through the process for implementing a practical work plan.

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Centre of Excellence (step four - assess your team’s characteristics)
22nd June 2021

Does your team have the right "soft skills" to develop your vision for an Information Centre of Excellence? We previously focused on services and functions but the activities in this article help you to assess your teams for these softer skills and better understand your strengths and weaknesses. This is the fourth in a five-part series of articles outlining the process for developing your future as an Information Centre of Excellence.

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Centre of Excellence (step three - envision your Known Fors)
10th June 2021

The concept of Known Fors establishes what you want your information service to be known for. What are the phrases and characteristics you aspire others to use when they think of your team? The activity in this article walks you through the process of developing Known Fors as part of your evolution towards a Centre of Excellence. This is the third in a five-part series of articles outlining the process for developing your future as an Information Centre of Excellence.

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