Competitive and Business Intelligence: Leveraging Information for Action

Discover how leading organizations use competitive intelligence (CI) for strategic planning and key decision making in Competitive and Business Intelligence: Leveraging Information for Action. Findings from this study relate to CI operations, information technology techniques to support CI, ways to gather and disseminate intelligence information, and identification of customer needs.

KEY FINDINGS

• Effective CI programs change over time to meet organizational needs yet retain continuity through well-respected individuals and "cultural" acceptance of their contributions.
• Successful CI programs develop and use decentralized, relationship-based intelligence networks to leverage experience, expertise, and resources across the company.
• Action-oriented CI programs develop IT approaches that address user needs, are flexible and simple to use, and allow fast communication across a diverse set of organizational members.
• Action-oriented CI programs have a strong linkage between tactical CI and strategic CI.
• Action-oriented CI programs integrate the processes of customer needs assessment, feedback evaluation, and implementation linkage.
• Action-oriented CI programs develop implications, insights, and recommendations that are based on analytically combined intelligence, experience, credibility, and anticipation of the future.
• Viable and effective CI programs develop varied ways to institutionalize an intelligence-sharing culture that broadens CI's acceptance and use, enabling best-practice organizations to compete successfully.