Competitive Intelligence

Internet Business Forum, Inc.
iBiz Tips Column - 1/12/01

Competitive intelligence.  Sound like something out of the cold war?  Well, if your thought was "industrial spy", you're missing the point.  And the point of Fuld & Company's web site (www.fuld.com) is competitive intelligence should apply to your own competitive environment and the predators that live in it. 

Competitive intelligence means many things to the pros that practice it.  At it's best, it is an early warning of both threats and opportunities.  Understanding a competitor's new products, sales approaches, market approaches, all fall under the title.   It's emphasis should be on actionable qualities of that information.

Who / How You Know

Most of us depend on conversations with customers and sales staff to find out where the competition is.  With the rise of the web,  there are other avenues to explore.  This web site, can help you understand how to structure your thinking, listening and looking to get the most from the wide variety of information sources available.    The site also provides a couple URL gold mines to dig in that will enrich your thinking, ongoing.

Otherwise, as Leonard Fuld suggests, you might as well get a Robert Ludlum or John LeCarre spy novel.   While you shouldn't apply much of their fiction to fact, at least there are good "facts behind their fiction".

Big Company Info for Little Company Use

This cleanly laid out site is designed to promote Fuld & Company's CI consulting services to mostly large companies.  However, it has some intriguing information that a small enterprise would do well to understand.   For competitive intelligence to be a thoughtful and organized help in understanding where your next risk is coming from, try mining these tools at the site:

  • "Corporate Evaluation Questionnaire" -  A check list of categories that Fuld recommends you have covered in your program.  It's oriented toward a big company but you can pick and choose the ones you need to organize your own program.

  • Leonard Fuld's book, "The New Competitive Intelligence" -  It's table of contents and the entire first chapter are on line for reading.  Chapter One is nice, if a bit high brow, introduction to the basics of competitive intelligence thinking and doing.
  • "Internet Intelligence Index" - The rest of the world calls these links.  Real meat here, whatever you call them.  He's got over 600 sources of general and industry specific URLs to sources of real data that you can use to develop your competitive landscape's 'portrait".
  • "Intelligence Dictionary" - If you really get into CI, this provides the presumably 100 key terms in the field of competitive intelligence.
  • "CI Success Stories" - A searchable data base of news stories (paper and electronic) on how specific companies use CI.  If this were ten times bigger, it would be invaluable, but it is worth scanning now.

If you see increased competitive pressure or are just ill at ease about it's potential, you should think about CI as a tool for your business.  

A few hours structuring your thinking will help you better understand available data and information and give you the better visibility.  Or it will scare the hell out of you.

Either way,  you probably have a "need to know". 

Dan Derby
Business & Technology Writer
contact@danderby.com