Competitive Intelligence: Bridging Organizational Boundaries

Information Management Journal, Mar/Apr 2004 by Myburgh, Sue

3. Identify Sources

Because information about competitors is needed, the next step is identifying information sources. This can be more complex - and more fun - than most people realize. Clearly, there is much information contained in a wide variety of documents, including published documents such as those that might be found in a library. Remember, however, that public information is not synonymous with "published" information - it means information that is available in the public domain.

Some questions to ask include: Where am I going to find what I want to know? How long will it take? What is it going to cost? Information sources can be internal, external, and third-party. They can include customers, industry periodicals, promotional materials, marketing research, analysis of competitors' products, competitors' annual reports, trade shows, distributors, the Internet, news media, academic research, specialists, associations, and patents, to name just a few.

There are many other types of sources. Internet features, such as listservs, enable keeping up to date with announcements, gossip, and rumors. Also useful is attending trade shows, professional association meetings, talking to consultants and customers, and looking at advertisements and anything else that could be a source - even noting what cars are driven by employees of rival companies. Each of these sources has different usefulness for providing corporate or market data.

Last, there is the information contained in the records with which RIM professionals deal on a daily basis. Many of the records may contain information that would aid decision-makers.

4. Information-gathering techniques

Actually gathering the information requires using certain tools and techniques, not all of which are suitable for all CI objectives; the CI specialist has to use judgment in determining the relevant CI needs and the most appropriate tools and techniques. These are chosen depending upon various factors such as CI needs, time constraints, financial constraints, staffing limitations, likelihood of obtaining the data, relative priorities of data, and sequencing of raw data.

Included in such information-gathering techniques are standard research methodologies such as interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, participant observation, data analysis, and measurement. In order to verify information (remember, in CI, a single source of information is seldom able to become intelligence), techniques such as triangulation are used, in which more than one measuring instrument is used to examine a single phenomenon. In addition to these formal techniques, RIM professionals must not forget the value of what they already know about the company, its objectives, and its staff. Often just one sentence or one word identified at the right time can be absolutely critical. Two notable information-gathering techniques in CI are: environmental scanning and competitive benchmarking.

Environmental scanning includes the gathering of information concerning the organization's external environment, the analysis and interpretation of this information, and the use of this analyzed intelligence in strategic decision-making