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We often link competitive intelligence to the simple informational research aspects in order to make decisions.
I believe that the competitive intelligence must be closely linked to the weak signals sensing and decision making under uncertainty.
For this, Competitive intelligence must interact with three essential elements:
1) The competitive environment that issues the weak signal into the pushed mass of information,
2) The pushed mass of information (generally as big data) that includes the weak signal and noises,
3) The decision maker (individual or team) that process and translate the information (eliminating noises, sensing the weak signal and understanding the environment) and finally modify that environment (and therefore the pulled information) by decision making.
For more details, see my PhD. thesis [French] @ https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-/document
The best tool for business intelligence is one that you can build tailored to your needs. There are a lot of off-the-shelf software tools but none specific, AND pricy.
You can start off with FileMaker or MS Access and call it a 'Competitor Intelligence Database' custom build it to collect, store, and share (within your trusted circle) information about your competitors.
The intent of this tool would be to have the following functions/capabilities as minimum:
- benchmarking competitive products or services
- monitoring and collecting promotional materials
- monitoring the press and journals for article, press releases and job ads
- taking views from the customers, suppliers, and partners
- attending exhibitions, conferences, and membership of trade associations
- maintaining regular searches and reports on the internet
- maintain contact/talk to former employees that worked for competing companies.
I know this sounds like a lot of efforts and recourses but this provides you results that you would stand out in the crowd of this competing world.
We are on the eve of technological revolution and you'd be amazed at what you can find on the internet now days.
Good luck,
Adnan
