Abstract
Competitive Intelligence (CI) as a business discipline and as a business practice is still in its infancy in South Africa. Only a few higher education courses in CI exist in South Africa and only a few studies on CI practices in South African firms have been done. The question that arises is: What is the level of development and deployment of CI in South Africa? From this study it is clear that most of the responding firms believe that CI can be used to create a competitive advantage and that CI is a legitimate and necessary activity for increasing their firms’ intelligence. It is, however, also clear that South African firms are not well equipped yet to conduct good intelligence practices, especially in the areas of process and structure, analysis and awareness. Recommendations are made in order to increase the firms’ CI awareness in order to improve South African firms’ competitiveness.
Highlights
Competitive intelligence (CI) is attracting increasing attention throughout the world
Within South Africa it is increasingly attracting media (Viviers, 2001; Naudé, 2001) and executive attention (Venter, 2001) through conferences (such as those organized by Marcus Evans and the Institute for International Research (IIR)), university courses, consultants and associations
While much research exists on the environmental scanning aspects of competitive intelligence and strategic decisionmaking, little research has been done on the holistic intelligence process model (Calof & Dishman, 2002)
Summary
Competitive intelligence (CI) is attracting increasing attention throughout the world. Within South Africa it is increasingly attracting media (Viviers, 2001; Naudé, 2001) and executive attention (Venter, 2001) through conferences (such as those organized by Marcus Evans and the Institute for International Research (IIR)), university courses, consultants and associations (such as SCIPSA and SAACIP). Competitive Intelligence in South Africa is still in its infancy (Calof & Viviers, 2001: 63). While much research exists on the environmental scanning aspects of competitive intelligence and strategic decisionmaking, little research has been done on the holistic intelligence process model (Calof & Dishman, 2002). With little work being done on the CI constructs themselves, it is difficult for this field, which is already so popular with management, to be properly investigated within the academic sphere
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