Competivitive intelligence is the analytical process that transforms disaggregated market and competitor data into accurate, relevant and actionable strategic information about competitors' capabilities, intentions, performance and position.

For specialists and nonspecialists alike, this perceptive selection of the newest and up and coming tools and techniques of competitive intelligence, offering a well balanced combination of theory and practice. It shows how advances in computers and technology have accelerated progress in CI management, and the ways in which CI has affected (and been affected by) all major business functions and processes. It explores applications to organizations of various sizes and types, in both the public and private sectors. Editors Fleisher and Blenkhorn link leading-edge research in CI to advances in current practice, and balance pragmatic against conceptual concerns. Analysts, strategists and organizational decision makers at higher levels will find the book especially valuable, as they seek to make sense of the business environment and assess their organizations' evolving, dynamic places in it. The pace of change in today's global, competitive economy is greater than at any time in recorded history. Thus, as never before, companies need better tools for business and competitive analysis. The book surveys applications of CI that are critical to business processes, such as mergers and acquisitions, and to evolving industries, such as biotechnology. They focus on how push and pull Internet technologies affect data gathering and analysis and how CI can be managerially assessed using multiple evaluative approaches, unavailable until now in the public domain. They then turn to the future, and lay out some startling yet plausible viewpoints on what the next frontiers of competitive intelligence will be and how organizations can and must ready themselves for them.

Every business manager needs intelligence to find suppliers, mobilize capital, win customers and fend off rivals. Obtaining this is often an unplanned, instinctive process. The manager who has a conscious, systematic approach to acquiring intelligence will be better placed to recognize and seize opportunities whilst safeguarding the organization against the competitive risks that endanger its prosperity - and sometimes even its survival. Christopher Murphy's Competitive Intelligence explains: ¢ the theory of business competition ¢ how companies try to get ahead of their rivals ¢ methods of research and sources of information that generate the raw material for creating intelligence ¢ analytical techniques which transform the mass of facts and opinions thus retrieved into a platform of sound, useable knowledge to support informed business decision making. The text includes plenty of examples and experiences from the author's own consulting experience. He draws on a wide variety of disciplines, including literary criticism (or how to read between the lines of company reports, announcements and media stories) and anthropology (understanding corporate culture), as well as the more obvious ones such as financial analysis, management theory and business forecasting techniques. This fusion of insights from many fields of expertise provides a very readable, practical and imaginative framework for anyone seeking to gather and make effective use of market and company data. While focused on the British business environment, the lessons drawn are of universal application, and examples are taken from across the globe. In addition a chapter is devoted to researching industries and companies in other countries. Although primarily concerned with commercial enterprises, many of the principles and techniques will also be of considerable practical relevance to managers in the public sector or not-for-profit organizations. Competitive Intelligence also provides a legal

First book to combine financial results with proprietary benchmarking data and in-depth interviews with experienced knowledge practitioners. The resulting framework provides an inside- and outside-the-firm view of the risks and opportunities found in knowledge management and competitive intelligence.

This Book Is Invaluable Not Merely For Those Engaged In Intelligence Gathering And Dissemination But Also For Every Student Of Current Affairs And Indeed Everyone Who Wishes To Remain Abreast Of The Current International Political And Military Scenario.

What do you really know about your competitors, and potential competitors? What are the real threats your business faces in the next two years? What do your competitors know about you, how did they find out about it and how can you stop them finding out more?