Competitive Intelligence Professionals Research Articles

SWOT analysis problems and solutions: Practitioners’ feedback into the ongoing academic debate

The literature on SWOT is characterized by a debate among academics who have identified problems and proposed solutions for the strategic management tool, yet little research to date has captured practitioners’ perspectives. Recent literature indicates that SWOT is still the most popular strategic management tool among competitive intelligence (CI) professionals. The purpose of this study is to bridge this academic-practitioner divide in the SWOT literature by conducting a cross-sectional survey that gathers practitioners’ feedback regarding whether they are experiencing the problems or employing the solutions proposed by academia. A survey was distributed via LinkedIn to collect data from CI and other business professionals who conduct SWOT in the workforce. The findings confirm that practitioners experience select problems identified by the literature. Specifically, they may have too many factors per SWOT category, may be defining factors with ambiguous and unclear words, and may not have a means for resolving conflicts when factors fall in multiple categories (e.g., opportunity and threat). The findings also indicate that practitioners may not be consistently conducting SWOT as a structured business process, as proposed in the literature. The feedback provided by CI and other business professionals aids in closing the academic-practitioner divide by more clearly identifying persistent issues with SWOT and creating valuable and actionable insights that will drive the continual improvement of this popular strategic management tool.

The impasse of competitive intelligence today is not a failure. A special issue for papers at the ICI 2020 Conference

The impasse of competitive intelligence today is not a failure. A special issue for papers at the ICI 2020 Conference

Competitive intelligence failures

PurposeCompetitive intelligence failures have devastating effects in marketplaces. They are attributed to various factors but seldom explicitly to information behaviour. This paper addresses causes of competitive intelligence failures from an information behaviour lens focussing on problems with key intelligence and information needs. The exploratory study was conducted in 2016/2017. Managers (end-users) identify key intelligence needs on which information is needed, and often other staff members seek the information (proxy information seeking). The purpose of this paper is to analyse problems related to key intelligence and information needs, and make recommendations to address the problems.Design/methodology/approachThe study is placed in a post-positivism research paradigm, using qualitative and limited quantitative research approaches. In total, 15 participants (competitive intelligence professionals and educators/trainers originating from South Africa and the USA) contributed rich data through in-depth individual interviews.FindingsProblems associated with articulation of information needs (key intelligence needs is the competitive intelligence term – with a broader scope) include inadequate communication between the person in need of information and the proxy information searcher; awareness and recognition of information needs; difficulty in articulation, incomplete and partial sharing of details of needs.Research limitations/implicationsParticipant recruitment was difficult, representing mostly from South Africa. The findings from this exploratory study can, however, direct further studies with a very understudied group.Practical implicationsHowever, revealed valuable findings that can guide research.Originality/valueLittle has been published on competitive intelligence from an information behaviour perspective. Frameworks guiding the study (a combination of Leckie et al.’s 1996 and Wilson’s, 1981 models and a competitive intelligence life cycle), however, revealed valuable findings that can guide research.

Соціальна відповідальність та інформаційна етика конкурентної розвідки в організаціях

Проблема інформаційної етики конкурентної розвідки стає особливо актуальною через активне бажання підвищувати конкурентоспроможність організацій і підтримувати максимально позитивний імідж компаній. Кодекс етики вважають загальноприйнятим елементом ведення конкурентної розвідки, адже він сприяє зростанню капіталізації та прихильності серед партнерів і споживачів. Виконуючи репутаційну, управлінську функції й функцію розвитку корпоративної культури, кодекс формує довіру до організації, бо моральна відповідальність співробітників означає надійність і стабільність. Основними завданнями дослідження є: 1) з’ясувати роль і місце конкурентної розвідки в інформаційному забезпеченні конкурентоспроможності організацій; 2) дослідити використання етики конкурентної розвідки у практичній діяльності; 3) розробити рекомендації щодо оцінки рівня професійності та дотримання етичних норм у роботі спеціалістів конкурентної розвідки. Для вирішення поставлених у роботі задач було використано декілька наукових підходів, а саме: інформаційний підхід (збір та аналіз інформації), системний підхід (дослідження структури, взаємозв’язків, функціонування, суті та особливості елементів системи), синергетичний підхід (аналіз шляхів розвитку, результатів майбутньої взаємодії). У статті розкрито значення та роль кодексу етики в діяльності конкурентної розвідки; на основі типових ситуацій у сфері КР проаналізувано та визначено правильну поведінку КР-спеціалістів у роботі; дослідження критеріїв оцінки професійності КР-фахівців дало змогу визначити характерні особливості та навички, яким повинен володіти професіонал конкурентної розвідки. Наголошено, що КР-професіонали повинні володіти необхідними етичними та професійними навичками, зокрема, аналітичною, комунікаційною, етичною, мережевою майстерністю. На основі SWOT-аналізу проведено оцінку рівня професійності та використання етичних норм у роботі КР-професіоналів.

КОМЕРЦІЙНА РОЗВІДКА ЯК ЕЛЕМЕНТ МАРКЕТИНГОВОГО ЗАБЕЗПЕЧЕННЯ ПІДПРИЄМСТВА

This article considers the marketing information system and business intelligence as one of the main elements of marketing information support of the enterprise. Emphasis is placed on increasing the role of the information sphere in modern business conditions. Scientific and technological progress is making rapid strides in all spheres of human life and marketing is not an exception. Accordingly, marketing information support requires business intelligence as one of the main components. The very concept of such exploration requires detailed scientific study and understanding. A comprehensive description of the process of business intelligence is provided, its legal basis and requirements for specialists in this field are indicated. The structure of business (competitive) intelligence is considered and its main structural elements are described. The differences between business intelligence and business espionage are also noted. The preconditions for the emergence of such a phenomenon as competitive intelligence are described, the historical stages of its formation are described. The question of its correlation with other marketing researches in the information sphere is analyzed. The role and significance of business intelligence for marketing information support are determined. The importance of characterizing the activities of a competitor as a guarantee of effective decision-making is emphasized. The application of business intelligence tools to increase the competitiveness of the enterprise is described. The functional mechanism of management of the process of business intelligence of the enterprise is resulted. The high level of specialists in this field, who have joined the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), has been demonstrated. The reasons for the increase in the number of specialists in this field every year are revealed. The work is based on the results of research of modern domestic and foreign views of scientists based on the concept of marketing information systems, research and intelligence.

User perspectives on business intelligence

The research articles in this issue are related to business intelligence in one way or another. The article by Salmas, Alebpour and Homayounvala is entitled “Identification and classification of organizational level competencies for BI success”. In their research the authors have identified competencies that can be used as a measure to evaluate an organization’s status with regards to business intelligence success. Since the study done by Adamala and Cidrin (2011) this journal has shown a strong interest in user evaluations of business intelligence systems. The article by Ghasemi and Rowshan presents a new approach to the early warning literature. Entrepreneurs are the group that more than anyone else are seeking out early insights and also rewarded by their ability to look ahead. In the literature this is known as “entrepreneurial alertness.” Science can never accept that some people are simply born entrepreneurs or have “eureka” moments: we want to understand why and how. From an intelligence perspective picking up early signals can be seen as a signal for which entrepreneurs to follow and listen to. The ability to gather data from socialmedia through the use of BI tools should make this possible once these entrepreneurs are identified. The article by Ghasemi and Rowshan does not go in this direction, but such research would be welcome in the future.The article by Avner entitled “Study on competitive intelligence in Isreal: 2016 update” is a status report for competitive intelligence within Israeli firms. The results are compared with a study conducted by the same author in 2006. The study shows that there has been no significant change in CI practices in Israel during the past ten years. It also confirms that competitive intelligence is primarily a tool used by larger organizations. This means that Israeli companies have been slower to adopt new business intelligence software, and this is something that respondents see as a problem.The article by Solberg Søilen entitled “Users’ perception of data as a service (DaaS)” is an investigation into a new market related to business intelligence. On one hand this is a survey addressing one particular type of users—namely market intelligence (MI), competitive intelligence (CI) and businessintelligence (BI) professionals and experts—and their preferences. On the other hand, this is a critical analysis about the consequences of the issues addressed by users. It is also an attempt to present DaaS in a shorter historical perspective.The case study on Qoros automotive manufacturing by Ahmadinia and Karim is an analysis of how the company could enter the European market. It has now been more than a year since JISIB decided to publish case studies as articles. The Qorors case is not only a good teaching case, but is also a goodillustration of how intelligence topics can be tied to marketing questions and the larger question about competitive advantage.As always, we would above all like to thank the authors for their contributions to this issue of JISIB. Since the beginning of the year the journal has been supported by a three year grant from the Swedish Research Council (VR). This has allowed us to increase the quality in layout design and review theEnglish grammar.

Achieving success in the C-suite

No abstract available.

Study on competitive intelligence in Israel: 2016 update

This paper investigates the state of competitive intelligence among Israeli firmsin 2014. The methodology used was self completion questionnaires, which were responded to in May and June of 2016. A response rate of 26% was achieved with 39 questionnaires returned of the 69 questionnaires that were sent out to 65 local firms, most of them with an annual turnover of greater than 100 million USD. The results indicated that there were insignificant changes in the use of competitive intelligence in Israel in the last 10 years, since a survey conducted in 2006. Initially it looked as if the use of competitive intelligence was expanding, but the actual findings shows that the contribution of competitive intelligence to the decision making process was not progressing as it was expected to and there were difficulties in making competitiveintelligence an integral part of the decision-making process and having it reach an influential position. The results indicated that the recent global downturn evidently had only a minimal effect on the competitive intelligence scheme and in 75% of the firms there were actually almost no changes in the competitive intelligence programs. Clearly, competitive intelligence was primarily a tool used by the larger organizations and most of the firms that responded (60%),were among those who competed in the global markets. I have also attempted to look into the quality attributes of competitive intelligence performance, and it seemed that the low use of analytical tools was an indicator that we cannot ignore. Only 33% of the competitive intelligence professionals were using these tools regularly as part of their analysis work and in presentingtheir findings.

Information Behavior of Competitive Intelligence Professionals: A Convergence Approach

Competitive intelligence activities are intensive information behavior. This paper reports a portion of results from a study of how 28 Canadian CI professionals work in the real world, such as the mechanism of their information needs, the types of information that they seek, and the information sources that they use.Les activités de la veille concurrentielle constituent des comportements informationnels intensifs. Cet article présente une partie des résultats d’une étude portant sur la manière dont 28 professionnels canadiens de la veille concurrentielle travaillent dans le monde réel, et plus particulièrement le mécanisme de leurs besoins informationnels, les catégories d’information recherchées, et les sources d’information utilisées.

A comparison of competitive intelligence activities in Brazil, Malaysia, Morocco and South Africa

Orientation: This article compared competitive intelligence activities in Brazil, Malaysia, Morocco and South Africa.Research purpose: The purpose was to determine how these countries can use competitive intelligence to increase their competitiveness in the global economy.Motivation for the study: Competitive intelligence is a challenge in developing economies.Research design, approach and method: A questionnaire survey was sent to competitive intelligence professionals in the four study countries.Main findings: The most important primary information source used in all four countries is direct customer feedback and the most important secondary information source used is corporate websites. Companies in all four countries did not use advanced analysis techniques.Practical/managerial implications: It is recommended that all four countries should develop a competitive intelligence culture by creating awareness of competitive intelligence amongst their employees.Contribution/value added: It is crucial to apply competitive intelligence in the four countries in order to become more competitive in the global economy.

What Do Competitive Intelligence Professionals Do? A Pilot Study

Many people have trouble in conceptualizing what competitive intelligence (CI) professionals do. A systemic research is designed to understand how CI professionals work in real life. This paper reports the pilot phase of the project.De nombreuses personnes ont de la difficulté à conceptualiser ce que font les professionnels de la veille concurrentielle. Une recherche systémique est conçue afin de comprendre comment les professionnels de la veille concurrentielle travaillent dans la vraie vie. Cette communication présente la phase préliminaire du projet.

An overview of articles on Competitive Intelligence in JCIM and CIR

This paper presents an overview of fifty-one articles from the Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management (JCIM) posted on the Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals´ webpage. It also looks at sixty-tree randomly selected articles out of about 250 from the Competitive Intelligence Review (CIR), published between 1996 and 2001. The first analysis is based on a comparison with eleven different variables that have been picked out from each of the articles. Findings: The most common country where the authors’ come from is the United States of America. Sixty-one of the eighty-three authors have a higher degree, first of all MBA and/or Ph.D. North American authors have a higher degree than authors from Europe. Authors from North America have contributed with fifty-seven percent of the proposals for further research of a total of twenty-one proposals. Fourteen articles have a professional author. The rest are academic contributions. The main topic in these articles is how to develop Competitive Intelligence (CI) but also how to define CI. The articles have different methodological approaches, qualitative and quantitative. Seventy tree percent have a qualitative approach and of those there are thirty-seven percent that also have a qualitative approach. For the second analysis dedicated to CIR one clear conclusion points to the large number of articles which resulted from the introduction of the Economic Espionage Act of 1997. Most contributions at CIR come from practitioners

Scenarios and early warnings as dynamic capabilities to frame managerial attention

This paper proposes that relating scenario planning with early warning scanning provides firms with synergic capabilities that help frame top management attention on possible future contexts and how they might unfold. The research is based on two case studies and makes two scholarly contributions: it discusses cognitive aspects in sensing by analyzing scenario planning and early warning scanning as dynamic capabilities; and it provides an exploration of the synergies between both. The paper may also help reflective scenario planners and competitive intelligence professionals to better connect their work.

The Methods of Selecting and Assessing Potential Consumers Used of by Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence has not been known recently. Such processes as industrial or commercial espionage are known much more. The actions, which are used in order to be protected from the mentioned influence, are as follows: making the lists of commercial secrets, official regulations, protection of corporal and informative data and other currently used tools. The competitive intelligence, which plays an especially important part in the context of globalization, is considered to be more significant with developing technologies (Blenkhorn, 2005). In any institution strategic decisions are made by executives at the highest level. According to the Doctor of Science at Pittsburgh University John E. Prescott, the executives of the highest level with no reaction to rivals actions are not forgiven (Prescott, 2004).So it is possible to characterize the first potential clients who might buy the services provided by competitive intelligence. Large international corporations could become such customers. On one side, such corporations have two alternatives of their choice, they are: buying competitive intelligence service from independent companies providing professional services or establish an internal detachment of competitive intelligence as a separate element or as an element working inside the detachment which has already been acting. Anyway it is clear that a lot of preparations are necessary working with large corporations to prove the advantages of the services provided by competitive intelligence (Fleisher, 2001). The available experience is one of the main arguments which could be presented by specialists of competitive intelligence. There are not many institutions preparing trained specialists in the field of competitive intelligence which would currently work. So mostly such specialists having got university degrees in economics, law, management, administration or other fields also having attended special training courses are experienced at working in special operational or secret services. Miller names the experience which specialists of competitive intelligence had got in military and governmental intelligence also working in detachments of analysis of information as an evidence of their available qualification (Miller. 2004). Later on due to the efforts made by the Association of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (ACIP) and some scientists the new professional direction also such profession as a specialist off competitive intelligence appeared. The experience of national intelligence services proves the importance of collecting and analysis of systemic information provided by intelligence for business (ACIP, 2011). Nevertheless it is necessary to remark that the main aim of business is getting profit so it is necessary to adapt the methods used by intelligence services for business goals. Providing security does not play the main part in this case. (SCIP, 2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.22.2.316

A strategic marketing intelligence and multi‐organisational resilience framework

PurposeThe paper seeks to explain how competitive intelligence officers can participate more fully in strategy formulation and implementation, and how they can contribute to the strategic intelligence process.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a review of the literature and the development of a strategic marketing intelligence and multi‐organisational resilience framework.FindingsCompetitive intelligence officers can contribute more fully to the strategic intelligence process and help establish an intelligence culture that incorporates counter‐intelligence. By adopting a broader understanding of what strategic marketing represents, marketing managers can devise new approaches to managing customer relationships and can develop international/global brand positioning strategies that when implemented counter the actions of legitimate competitors and new entrants, and disrupt the actions of counterfeiters and fraudsters.Research limitations/implicationsA study can be undertaken to establish how a multi‐organisational resilience value system evolves within an organisation, and how trust and credibility among competitive intelligence professionals can be developed.Practical implicationsAcademics and practitioners can collaborate in order to establish how an intelligence culture can be created within an organisation. Furthermore, they can also collaborate in establishing how a proactive approach to risk assessment can underpin scenario analysis and planning and aid the strategic decision‐making process.Originality/valueA number of insights are provided into how competitive intelligence officers contribute to the development of a multi‐organisational resilience value system that is underpinned by an intelligence culture.

Competitive intelligence

PurposeThe article traces the origins of the competitive intelligence fields and identifies both the practitioner, academic and inter‐disciplinary views on CI practice. An examination of the literature relating to the field is presented, including the identification of the linear relationship which CI has with marketing and strategic planning activities.Design/methodology/approachBibliometric assessment of the discipline. Findings reveal the representation of cross disciplinary literature which emphasises the multi‐faceted role which competitive intelligence plays in a modern organization.FindingsThe analysis supports the view of competitive intelligence being an activity consisting dominantly of environmental scanning and strategic management literature. New fields of study and activity are rapidly becoming part of the competitive intelligence framework.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis only uses ABI Inform as the primary sources for literature alongside Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) and Competitive Intelligence Foundation (CIF) publications, particularly the Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management. A more comprehensive bibliometric analysis might reveal additional insights. Simple counts were used for analytical purposes rather than co‐citation analysis.Practical implicationsAttention is drawn to the need for the integration of additional, complementary fields of study and competitive intelligence practice. It is clear that today's competitive intelligence practitioner cannot afford to rely on what they learned 20 years ago in order to ensure the continued competitive advantage of their firm. A keen understanding of all business functions, especially marketing and planning is advocated.Originality/valueWhile there have been bibliographies of competitive intelligence literature there have been few attempts to relate this to the three distinct areas of practice. This article is of use to scholars in assisting them to disentangle the various aspect of competitive intelligence and also to managers who wish to gain an appreciation of the potential which competitive intelligence can bring to marking and business success.

Connecting strategy and competitive intelligence: refocusing intelligence to produce critical strategy inputs

I n many companies, it’s urgent that a more productive dialogue about strategy making take place between the executive leadership and the team responsible for creating critical marketplace insights – a team composed of the competitive intelligence professionals and the managers in other functional areas who work with them. As a diagnostic to determine whether your firm has this communications problem, ask yourself two questions: Does your firm endorse a collaborative inquiry that drives a strategy-intelligence linkage? Does intelligence about marketplace change stimulate strategic thinking and discussion? If the answer to either question is ‘‘No,’’ two factors are likely responsible.

Connecting strategy and competitive intelligence: refocusing intelligence to produce critical strategy inputs

I n many companies, it’s urgent that a more productive dialogue about strategy making take place between the executive leadership and the team responsible for creating critical marketplace insights – a team composed of the competitive intelligence professionals and the managers in other functional areas who work with them. As a diagnostic to determine whether your firm has this communications problem, ask yourself two questions: Does your firm endorse a collaborative inquiry that drives a strategy-intelligence linkage? Does intelligence about marketplace change stimulate strategic thinking and discussion? If the answer to either question is ‘‘No,’’ two factors are likely responsible.

A Rounded Picture: Using Media Framing as a Tool for Competitive Intelligence and Business Research

Many of the organizations who commission news monitoring agencies for press cutting deliveries do very little with the articles they collect other than occasionally circulating individual items of interest and the judgements which managers make about their competitors tend to be made on the basis of one or two recent articles. Framing methodologies offer opportunities for analyzing data sourced from news and trade media in order to provide rounded pictures of organizational cultures, strategies and management styles. Framing offers distinct advantages to competitive intelligence professionals, business researchers, librarians, academics and students. Focuses primarily on media framing as a tool for competitive intelligence (CI) and competitor analysis, stressing the benefits of media framing in terms of the ease of application and relative cheapness in terms of data resources. Media framing can take the large amount of disparate information generated by the print media and organize it in such a way as to create distinct and unique intelligence about competitors. Since all the information used by media framing is obtained from public domain sources, it is exempt from the legal and ethical issues which often confront CI and business research professionals. The overall nature of media framing is described with step-by-step guidance in its application to real situations. Typical of the sets of constructs which news items on competitors should be analyzed include: possible substitute services; possible substitute products; potential entrants to client market; competitor’s relationship with suppliers; competitor’s relationship with buyers; competitor’s pricing strategy; competitor’s market focus; competitor’s talent pool; competitor’s organizational culture and management style; and change in competitor’s organization.

CEOs' power and corporate performance transitions

AbstractThis study addresses the question, How does CEO power affect, and respond to, corporate performance transitions over time? Drawing on insights culled from the top management and organizational life‐cycle literature, we assumed that CEO power rises and falls in tandem with a firm's upward or downward performance cycles. However, our examination of four CEO “power characteristics”—structural, ownership, expert, and prestige—at 38 major U.S. corporations over a period of 12 years showed, instead, that CEOs' power (1) rises and falls within both upward and downward performance transitions and (2) does not rise and fall in a steady, monotonic fashion. In fact, some dimensions of CEO power are clearly more tied than others to changes in firm performance, and shifts in CEO power can also be linked to either the early or the late part of each transition cycle. These results have several implications for competitive intelligence (CI) professionals: First, the four power characteristics seem to behave independently of each other and seem to influence performance in their own unique ways. Each characteristic seems to play a very special role in the scheme of things and contribute uniquely to our understanding of performance transitions. Because of the special role that each power characteristic assumes in driving a firm's performance, CI professionals must track all four power indicators (and not simply any one of the indicators) to fully comprehend the performance changes. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.