File Edit Format View Help What is competitive intelligence? Competitive intelligence (CI) is the action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors, and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in strategic decision making for an organization. CI means understanding and learning what is happening in the world outside the business to increase ones competitively. It means learning as much as possible, as soon as possible, about one's external environment including one's industry in general and relevant competitors. [1] Key points: 1. Competitive intelligence is a legal business practice, as opposed to industrial espionage, which is illegal. 2. The focus is on the external business environment. 3. There is a process involved in gathering information, converting it into intelligence and then using it in decision making. Some CI professionals erroneously emphasize that if the intelligence gathered is not usable or actionable, it is not intelligence. EXAMPLE: Examples of competitive intelligence include stock traders who analyze the data on prices and price movements to determine the best investments. These stock traders have the same data as other traders, but analysis of the data separates them from others. A final example is how Wal-Mart stores studied problems Sears had with distribution, and built a state-of-the art distribution system so that Wal-Mart customers were not frustrated by out-of-stock items, as were sears's customers. Case study: Discovering the launch date for a new product Brief: A number of press reports had announced that client's competitor was about to launch a new product. The client wanted to know the date of this launch. Result: With the launch date known, client was able to launch their own counter-publicity campaign on the same date, thereby dampening the effect of the competitor's advertising. How the information was obtained: A rule of thumb for finding information is to try to understand why information will be available - for example: Journalists - who may already have the launch date The competitors advertising agency - who had already worked on the product advertisement Packaging suppliers - who would know of impending changes to production runs Supermarket managers - who would have been pre-warned to reserve shelf space. Q. What was the lesson learned from this case study? What steps should have been take in order to be safe from such competitor