"Competitive Intelligence (CI) is a systematic and ongoing process for gathering and analysing information to derive actionable insights about competitors, the competitive environment and trends in order to further the organisation’s business goals."
~ Adapted from Fleisher & Bensoussan, 2003
CI is concerned with the ethical and legal methods companies use to monitor their competitors, identify growth opportunities, understand their own competitive position and improve their performance.
CI helps organisations sustain their competitive advantage by providing actionable and reliable input to decision makers at operational, tactical or strategic levels.
The CI process can identify and project strategies that current or future competitors might pursue by providing a predictive, future oriented assessment of potential implications. Its purpose is to out-manoeuvre, out-wit and out-smart competitors by picking up weak, ambiguous signals from the market place.
Below is a diagram of the steps taken in the intelligence operation.
The true value of a holistic CI system is the management of risk associated with strategic decision-making. CI seeks to reduce the cost of executive decisions based on poor information by combining:
- Human intelligence techniques
- Communication processes
- Technology providing an effective knowledge management and dissemination platform
A systematic CI process is based on the following cycle:
Focus: Determine key business issues that need to be addressed
Collect: Efficiently search and collate information to resolve the issues under investigation
Analyse: Understand the future implications of emerging threats and opportunities
Action: Disseminate and utilise the knowledge generated to minimise decision risk
What CI can do for your company:
CI can help to minimise the risks involved in operational and strategic decisions about:
- Competitive strategy
- Competitor profiles
- Pricing policy
- Joint ventures
- Market opportunities
- Product and service launches
- Mergers and acquisitions
CI can provide the following benefits:
- Early warning of competitor moves
- Rapid response to market opportunities
- Integral to formulation of strategy
- Prevention of mistakes, security, counter-intelligence
- Increases revenue for the company
CI can also assist with business discussions about:
- Growth opportunities
- Industry and structural risk
- Sales and distribution
- Financial performance
- Production process and operations
- Management and organisational structure
- Production capacity and capacity utilisation
Source: CI Boot Camp, R.L. Linville, SCIP 1996
Your company is probably doing some type of ad hoc CI already. Why not systematise it and reap the most benefits?
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