The way Competitive Intelligence (CI) is used by corporates has undergone a tremendous change over the years. Bigwigs like IBM, Xerox, and Procter & Gamble have led this evolution.
The
extremely competitive contemporary business scenario
is not an easy place for corporates to carry out business.
Business organizations are working under great pressure
to grow and enhance stakeholder value. In such circumstances
any company would try to get that critical information
about its rival and to out beat the rival. Today, most
companies are aware of the importance of understanding
competitors' business not merely as a means to increase
their profit, but also to grow and sustain. They realize
that to survive the battle they ought to have a clear
understanding of what they are doing and against whom
they are competing.
According
to the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals
(SCIP), CI is "A systematic and ethical program
for gathering, analyzing, and managing external information that
can affect your company's plans, decisions, and operations.
CI has a broader scope while assimilating all of the
attributes of competitor analysis. To complete the pyramid,
business intelligence occupies the top rung with the
broadest scope and degree of intelligence-gathering,
including environment scanning (of such issues as economic
conditions, social change, technological developments,
and political and regulatory events); market research
and analysis, competitive intelligence and finally knowledge
management. In fact, CI is considered as one of the
most important applications of Knowledge Management
(KM). KM plays an important role in the creation of
an effective competitive intelligence network, though
both these are treated as two separate independent entities
working in tandem for the cause of the other. Steven
Storms, a CI Analyst at Weyer Haeuser, observes, "While
KM is more concerned with data collection, storage,
retrieval, protection, etc., CI is mainly used for data
analysis. |
