Abstract
Competitive intelligence (CI) plays a significant role in business management and practice. Management of companies have relied on competitive intelligence information to support decisions to give them an edge over their competitors. Companies use intelligence information to stay abreast and be in tune with the business environment. The purpose of this study is to understand the role of CI, the sophistication and intensity attached to it and examine the degree of knowledge of the processes in a firm. The exploratory study used triangulation and a survey to meet its objectives. Due to the sensitivity of the schedule, only 15 personnel were assigned to this task in the organization. The results indicate that XYZ Company is aware of the role and importance of CI but it is yet to fully utilize its potential. A major finding is that no single coherent CI process is being followed but rather a series of ‘adhoc’ measures are used. This implies that there is the need to develop systematic procedures for generating CI data and streamline the processes used in analyzing such information.
Highlights
1.1 The Essence of Competitive Intelligence InformationIn every industry, firms gather information from the external environment to understand and respond to that knowledge
In Ghana where data compilation and storage is an issue and Competitive intelligence (CI) information a mirage, can one determine the role CI report plays in companies and how such information is used? The purpose of the study is to examine XYZ Company’s CI system and the challenges it faces in compiling such data for processing
All the respondents (100%) confirmed that Research and Development of XYZ Company (XYZ) has been in operation as a department for gathering and analyzing information from their external environment and competitors
Summary
1.1 The Essence of Competitive Intelligence InformationIn every industry, firms gather information from the external environment to understand and respond to that knowledge. Kotler and Keller (2009), Etzel, Walker and Stanton (2004) and Fleisher (2001) defined competitive intelligence (CI) as a process that leads to information generation from competitors and the industrial environment for planning and decision making. Business organizations and firms use different variations of processes and methods to generate CI information but the aim of such processes is to give firms some knowledge that would lead to a competitive advantage. It creates an enabling environment for organizations to have a competitive edge in a market. Lack of external environment information can degenerate to poor business performance
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