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While there are many
interpretations of the term "competitive intelligence," it is useful
to view it as defined by the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals
(SCIP) in first place.
SCIP defines CI as follows:
Competitive Intelligence: A systematic and
ethical program for gathering, analyzing, and managing external information
that can affect your company's plans, decisions, and operations.
Put another way, CI is the process of
enhancing marketplace competitiveness through a greater -- yet unequivocally
ethical -- understanding of a firm's competitors and the competitive
environment.
Specifically, it is the legal collection
and analysis of information regarding the capabilities, vulnerabilities, and
intentions of business competitors, conducted by using information databases
and other "open sources" and through ethical inquiry. SCIP's members
conduct CI for large and small companies, providing management with early
warning of changes in the competitive landscape.
CI enables senior managers in companies of
all sizes to make informed decisions about everything from marketing, R&D,
and investing tactics to long-term business strategies. Effective CI is a
continuous process involving the legal and ethical collection of information,
analysis that doesn't avoid unwelcome conclusions, and controlled dissemination
of actionable intelligence to decision makers.
Competitive intelligence is the gathering and analysis of information
from human and published sources about market trends and industry
developments that allows for advanced identification of risks and opportunities in the competitive arena. (Ben Gilad, PhD )
Competitive intelligence is a formalized, yet continuously evolving process
by which the management team assesses the evolution of its industry and
the capabilities and behavior of its current and potential competitors
to assist in maintaining or developing a competitive
advantage.(Prescott and Gibbons)
Competitive intelligence is a structured approach to gathering, analyzing and communicating data to make informed business decisions.
The data that is obtained can be collected from publicly available
published or human sources (so-called primary and secondary sources).
Any attempts to gather information illegally and unethically may lead
to utilizing inaccurate data. (Competia)
Compare these to the Definition of Business Intelligence.
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