Competitive Intelligence

Competitive Intelligence
From Black Ops to Boardrooms--How Businesses Gather, Analyze, and Use Information to Succeed in the Global Marketplace
by Larry Kahaner

Available on Amazon.com

Larry Kahaner's book Competitive Intelligence has been hailed by business and political leaders as a breakthrough work. Using actual company examples, it shows how companies use competitive intelligence to stay ahead of the global pack. Business leaders' endorsements and media reviews.

It is the best-selling book of its kind and has been translated into six languages. It is a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, a Business Week Best-Seller, and is used as a textbook in many business courses.

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What is Competitive Intelligence?

"It is pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised."
--Frederick the Great

Competitive intelligence is a systematic program for gathering and analyzing information about your competitors' activities and general business trends to further your own company's goals.

CI experts legally and ethically gather information by employing the latest technology and ingenious methods including satellite photo-reconnaissance, combing government databases, filing Freedom of Information Act requests, back-engineering and even hiring psychiatrists to analyze a competitor's decision-makers. Companies often employ super-speed computers designed specifically for analyzing mountains of data.

These skilled corporate agents ferret out information from the most unlikely of places and transform it into intelligence that can turn their company around, build market share, launch new products or destroy a competitor. It's a hardball world that turns raw data into millions of dollars if done well. If done poorly, their own company might perish as a result of their miscalculations.

Competitive intelligence is relatively new and as yet undeveloped among the majority of United States companies. Japanese companies, by contrast, have had well established competitive intelligence systems in place since World War II. In Europe, the situation is somewhat similar in that government agencies also have taken an active interest in competitive intelligence. CI relies on the intelligence cycle, a process similar to that employed by the CIA and other intelligence agencies throughout the world.

Competitive intelligence has become the latest weapon in the world war of economics which pits nation against nation. While the major powers are moving away from traditional weapons of destruction, they are moving towards economic weapons like competitive intelligence to ensure their national sovereignty and survival.

Many of the emerging economies such as China, Vietnam, Korea and Thailand see competitive intelligence as a way to win economic wars against larger, more industrialized countries. By using their wits instead of weapons, these countries are able to turn raw information into actionable intelligence to further their economic status in the world market.

Unlike manufactured products of the past, the cornerstone of today's exploding industries is knowledge--not raw materials--and this is clearly shown by business drivers that have changed radically since the 1940s. Turning information into actionable intelligence is what will ultimately separate successful companies from those that fall by the wayside not only in the high technology sector but every other business sector as well.

The basis of competitive intelligence is knowing the difference between information and intelligence.

Also, it's important to understand that competitive intelligence is not a function; it's a process. It should appear in all aspects of your business as one seamless process not relegated to one area, division or unit. Although the main job of competitive intelligence is to support management decision-making, having a formalized competitive intelligence system in place can help your company address many different issues.

Efforts at getting competitive intelligence up and running in the 1980s were often scatter shot although the best programs have endured. For other companies which made half-hearted or no attempts at a formal competitive intelligence program, perhaps it still wasn't deemed important enough. However, most American companies now are starting to understand that the 1980s were a cake walk compared to the coming decade.

Consider this: Today, less than 40 percent of the U.S. companies on the 1979 Fortune 500 list are still on the list.

Competitive intelligence is an absolute imperative because of events and changes which occurred in the 1980s that show no sign of abating into the 2000s.

Despite the fact that everything a company does--from managers making decisions to using management tools like TQM and Customer Satisfaction--involves the flow of information and intelligence, many managers resist setting up CI units in the companies. Why? The most important reason is attitude, the way managers--especially conservative, in-the-box managers--think about intelligence.

Studies show that companies that employ a well-organized CI effort are market leaders, win more and larger contracts and are surprised less often by competitors and market events than those that don't use CI.

Copyright © 2010 Larry Kahaner