1. Is monitoring an unproductive activity?

This is the key point. Watching produces nothing. Or rather, it does, but it only produces the immaterial. It produces analysis, information, interest, alerts and decisions. At best, it produces the right decision.

At a time when the company needs to sell its products and services, it is faced with a function that is sometimes divorced from operational and commercial objectives.

Watching costs money and, what's more, produces nothing.

There are several reasons for this criticism.

• Too often, we have tried to pass off monitoring as something imperatively strategic, while at the same time denying it the opportunity to meet much more down-to-earth needs. In tense moments when production management is in the spotlight, the latent conflict between watchers and production...