Useful Competitive Intelligence (CI) Links, Articles, Books, and Websites
CI Links
Business is War - A CI simulation of war games in a business environment.
CI Strategies and Tools - An essential site for gaining an understanding of CI.
CI Seek - Provides links and information on CI including associations, companies, employment and training.
Intelligence Tips - Provides helpful pointers on how to keep an eye on the competition now that business cycles are moving faster than ever.
SCIP - US - The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals is the international CI association providing seminars, networking opportunities, publications, and more.
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Internet Articles
Using the Internet for Competitive Intelligence - Very good paper by Jean Graef of the Montague Institute from 1995.
On Predicting the Future: Competitive Intelligence as a Knowledge Management Discipline - Great article by Arik R. Johnson.
An Excellent Overview of CI - By Yogesh Malhotra, (1996), @BRINT Research Institute.
Competitive Intelligence - Get Smart! - A panel of experts provides a six point program for keeping an eye on the competition.
Building a Competitor Profile - This article outlines the steps in building a good customer profile and the questions you need to ask.
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Suggested Reading List
There are a huge number of books available on CI issues through your local bookstore, or order them through Amazon. For our complete recommended reading list click here. Our current selection is outlined in detail below.
 Business and Competitive Analysis by Craig Fleisher and Babette Bensoussan
Leveraging off their first book, this second book provides readers with another 24 commonly applied methods for helping generate actionable recommendations for decision makers, as well as detailed chapters that address the process of competitive analysis itself.
Strategic and Competitive Analysis by Craig Fleisher and Babette Bensoussan
Comprehensively examines the wide spectrum of techniques involved in analysing business and competitive data and information including environmental analysis, industry analysis, competitor analysis, and temporal analysis models. It helps business analysts and decision-makers to draw effective conclusions from limited data and to put together information that does not often fit together at first glance. |
 Staying Ahead of the Competition by Chris Hall and Babette Bensoussan
This book is unique in that it is based on detailed research spanning a decade of dramatic competitive change.
 Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence by Margaret Metcalf Carr
Presents hard-earned secrets from 15 leading CI researchers within various Fortune 100 firms.
From Knowledge to Intelligence by Helen N. Rothberg and G. Scott Erickson
Demonstrates how corporations can combine their competitive intelligence gathering with their internal knowledge management gathering into one dynamic system. |
 Competitive Intelligence by Michelle Cook and Curtis Cook
Presents hard-earned secrets from 15 leading CI researchers within various Fortune 100 firms.
Early Warning by Ben Gilad
Outlines a competitive early warning system (CEW) as an externally focused, three-part system built on risk identification, risk monitoring, and management action. |
 The Art and Science of Business Intelligence Analysis by Ben Gilad and Jan Herring
Now out of print, but you can put it on order through Amazon. A fantastic book on Competitive Intelligence and strongly recommended by us. Contains numerous articles from CI experts around the world.
Competitive Intelligence by Larry Kahaner
Explains how to turn raw facts and statistics about competitors' activities and market trends into practical guidelines for making the right business decisions. |
 Outsmarting the Competition: Practical Approaches to Finding and Using Competition Information by John McGonagle Jr and Carolyn Vella
Provides advice for businesses on finding and using legal, publicly available competitive information on other firms in the industry. Highly recommended.
 Competition in the 21st Century by Kirk Tyson
A business executive's guide to the 21st century dismissing the information age as 'adolescence' in corporate history, and proposing that the new buzz phrase in the next millennium should be 'intelligence age'.
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Web-Based Analysis for Competitive Intelligence by Conor Vibert
This book offers readers a starting point for managing the breadth of information available on the Internet and how this information can help analysts, researchers, and CI professionals.
 Strategic Thinking and the New Science by T. Irene Sanders
The future is happening today, and the most successful organisations will be those that understand the dynamics of the 'big picture' in which their decisions are being made. This book describes how to understand and influence that picture. Irene Sanders pioneered the application of chaos theory and complexity to strategic thinking - the most essential skill in today's fast-paced business environment.
The Competitive Intelligence Handbook by Richard Combs and John Moorhead Provides an overview of how useful information is gathered and where it is to be found. A field guide for anyone needing to decipher the business climate.
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Websites
All businesses refer to a range of resources for the information required to run a business. Here are some of the links MindShifts finds useful, and we thought it would be good to share them.
Search Engines & MetaSearch Engines
AltaVista - Fantastic for doing all sorts of word seachers.
Copernic - The daddy of all search engines.
Exploratorius - The meta search engine, as it includes all my favourite search engines: Google, AllTheWeb, Northernlight and Altavista.
Google - A neat website that lets you search on exactly what you do and do not want to find.
LookSmart - An Australian search engine.
Search Engine Watch - The best reference site for search engine placement and research techniques, with up-to-date developments on all the top search tools available for free or on subscription.
Sensis - A search engine built for Australians, reflecting Australian results on the left of the page, and World results on the right.
Yahoo - Very broad search engine, allowing you to search by website, web page or news story.
Other search engines: Infoseek, Lycos and Excite.
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Business
ABIX - Australian Business Intelligence, a commercial source.
ACCC - Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Australian Bureau of Statistics - The official Australian statistics collection agency.
Australia Business Online - Australian businesses association.
Australian Government Entry Page - A great place to get your bearings on business in Australia.
Australian Productivity Commission - Good for free industry reports since 1990, (eg: from the automotive industry to private health insurance).
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) - Regulates banks, insurance companies, superannuation funds, credit unions, building societies, and friendly societies; great source for banking statistics.
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) - For company searches.
Dun & Bradstreet - Providing assistance to businesses. D&B's global commercial database contains more than 100 million business records.
Ditto - A good place to start to search for pictures.
Equities Info - Directly links to annual reports for over 1,000 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.
Freeskills - For FREE online training in almost all major software products.
Newslink - Connects to 3300 US newspapers and 2000 non-US newspapers.
NewsDirectory - an international portal with good Australian and New Zealand coverage.
Web Marketing and E-commerce - the biggest resource on the web, offering practical advice on best web marketing practice and thousands of links to related articles and sites.
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Information Sources
Wikipedia - A free encyclopedia source.
Answers.com - A ready-reference site.
Analysts
Factiva, The Gartner Group, IDC and IBISWorld
Online databases (usually fee-based services):
Lexis-Nexis, Dialog and Hoover's Online.
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Getting it Right: Avoiding the High Cost of Wrong Decisions
