Competitive Intelligence Advantage: How to Minimize Risk, Avoid Surprises, and Grow Your Business in a Changing World

By Seena Sharp

Book Overview

A practical introduction to the necessity of competitive intelligence for smarter business decisions-from a leading CI expert and speaker

In Competitive Intelligence Advantage, Seena Sharp, founder of one of the first Competitive Intelligence firms in the US, provides her expert analysis on the issues and benefits of CI for today's businesses. CI is critical for making smarter business decisions and reducing risks when formulating strategies, leading to more profits and fewer mistakes.

This is a practical guide that explains what CI is, why data is not intelligence, why competitor intelligence is a weak sibling to competitive intelligence, when to use it, how to find the most useful information and turn it into actual intelligence, and how to present findings in the most convincing manner. Importantly, Sharp argues that businesses would benefit from shifting their perspective on CI from viewing it as a cost to viewing it as an investment that saves money and provides immediate value.

Author Seena Sharp is a noted CI expert who established Sharp Market Intelligence in 1979 Addresses all the most common myths and misconceptions about CI Includes more than sixty examples of when to use CI Completely explains the ins and outs of CI, and why your company will act faster and more aggressively with CI

Competitive intelligence is a management tool that is misunderstood and underestimated, yet results in numerous benefits. If you are a senior level executive or operate a business-and you aren't tapping the power of CI to improve your decision making-you are missing a potent advantage.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470293179
• ISBN13: 9780470293171
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.14 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Best starting point for learning competitive intelligence

Seena Sharp's book is the best starting point for learning the competitive intelligence field. One of the reasons why this is a fundamental book for understanding the field is because it integrates other fields that have been traditionally thought of as outside the scope of "competitive intelligence". Even her initial definition of competitive intelligence has a stronger integrative focus than most traditional definitions: competitive intelligence is "knowledge and foreknowledge about the entire business environment that results in action". In other words, there is no exclusive obsession about competitors in the definition. Actionable knowledge about the entire environment is what really counts for maintaining the competitiveness of a business, especially since your competitors could be just as lost as you are in finding the right path to success. Seena emphasizes the importance throughout the book of integrating consumer research, economic analysis, cross-industry perspectives and other analysis into the traditional focus on analyzing competitors. She also cites many useful and recent examples both in her consulting practice and in recent events about the applied use of competitive intelligence, including during recessions. The insights even in the first chapter about the common mistakes that executives make in managing a business are worth the price of the book alone. She also defines the differences between data, information and intelligence, and clarifies the differences between fields often associated with competitive intelligence such as marketing research and the IT-oriented field of business intelligence. Seena's book is a very refreshing overview that the field of competitive intelligence is desperately in need of. I've read numerous books about competitive intelligence but few books are as understandable and pragmatic as Seena's about how to integrate competitive intelligence into the minds of executives. Few companies have given competitive intelligence a serious focus, especially since the field has been closely identified with competitor analysis instead of motivating executives to take insightful actions in managing the entire business. The field of competitive intelligence needs to move beyond a close focus on competitive war gaming and focus more on customer needs and cross-industry analysis, and Seena builds a strong foundation for that. Hopefully we'll see more books from her in the future!

Interesting and Useful

I am a Senior Finance Manager and was looking for information to help me build a competitive intelligence team for my company. I have bought and read many competitive and business intelligence books, and this book is one of the best. The content is not only about the "what" of CI but also has solid examples and resources for how to solve certain problems. As someone who is responsible for implementing projects, the "How" is much more valuable than the "What". I particularly like some of the websites and resource she recommended for doing CI investigation. For example, recently I was helping a friend prepare for a job interview for a CFO position. He wanted to get information on the CEO before the interview, but unfortunately the company is a private family owned business and the CEO is very private, so he doesn't have a Linkedin account and searches on the web found nothing. Only after two days of investigating did I manage to find an article about the CEO in a local High School newspaper. He had given a speech about how to run a successful business. In the speech, he provided the students some background information about himself such as schooling and interests. This was exactly what my friend was looking for to help him prepare for the job interview. This book is also very well written and has good stories, so reading it was quick and enjoyable. If you are really interested in developing CI models, I also highly recommend the book: Business and Competitive Analysis Effective Application of New and Classic Method by Craig S. Fleisher and Babette E. Bensoussan. Unlike this book, it is not one you can read before bedtime and most of the information is the "What", but regardless, a great reference book for different strategic business models.

Valuable for small businesses

For a small business person who does his or her own business research, Chapter 9 alone makes this book worthwhile. Identifying and evaluating several dozen sources of information provides a ticket to being able to find critical information. I also liked the myth-busting chapter because from puncturing the notion that everything worth knowing can be found using Google to the false belief that you can't research private companies. Using this book, a small business person can get an advantage in making critical choices and decisions.

Analytic Insights

There are a number of books on the subject of what is called "competitive intelligence" that appear to offer the same sort of advice to commercial enterprises. Perhaps all are equally good. This book however seems to have some particularly important insights that are applicable both to the private and public sectors of intelligence production. Sharp makes a vitally important distinction between data, information, and intelligence. Now of course it can be argued that intelligence is simply processed information and Sharp would probably not disagree with this statement. She would point out that the transformation of information into intelligence normally involves sophisticated research and analysis as well as considerable commitment on the part of the analyst. Competitive Intelligence (CI) is very much a holistic approach to intelligence gathering and production. Properly developed CI can provide an outline guide for risk mitigation, research and development, production cycles and marketing strategy. Sharp makes a particularly telling point on the role of information systems in the production of CI: she argues that while information systems can be repositories and organizers of data and information relevant to any enterprise, it takes human cognition to transform this into CI. Sharp correctly recognizes that for the foreseeable future computer processing cannot yet simulate all human cognitive processes so human analysis is still a necessary part of producing CI. Sharp appears to have developed an effective and easy to understand technique to create a viable CI program in any enterprise. Along the way she has developed some good insights that are equally applicable to the world of secret intelligence. This is a book that provides a very clear and useful explanation of CI and how to establish an effective CI program.

Best Possible Starting Point for Executives & Students

This book is a gem. It is a rare book that I would recommend equally to senior executives and students thinking about a career path, but this is such a book. I agreed to review this book for the publisher and received a free copy. I've known the author since the early 1990's when the U.S. Government first tried to learn how to do commercial intelligence, calling it Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). They still don't get it, for the same reason most executives don't get it: arrogance, ignorance, and a complacency that comes from having too much money and not enough accountability. Before laying down my notes, let me first place this book squarely in the top twelve books in English. This is the one I would recommend to anyone as a starter, followed by: Ben Gilad, Blindspots (Infonortics, UK), order online from them directly Early Warning: Using Competitive Intelligence to Anticipate Market Shifts, Control Risk, and Create Powerful Strategies Measuring the Effectiveness of Competitive Intelligence: Assessing & Communicating CI's Value to Your Organization Super Searchers Do Business Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence: The Online and Offline Secrets of Top CI Researchers (Super Searchers series) Business and Competitive Analysis: Effective Application of New and Classic Methods Building & Running a Successful Research Business: A Guide for the Independent Information Professional The New Competitor Intelligence: The Complete Resource for Finding, Analyzing, and Using Information about Your Competitors Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology: Technical Intelligence for Business The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time The last are mine, as with all my books free online at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog. There are MANY books in this field, some listed at the back of this book. For me it boils down to culture, structure, sources, and process. CULTURE: from the CEO to the Chief Content Officer or Chief Knowledge Officer, do the bottom-line bosses understand that Competitive Intelligence is worth at least 20% of their gross in new revenue or avoidance of lost revenue? STRUCTURE: Is there at least a six person CI shop with a direct report relationship to the CEO or no less than one down from the CEO? SOURCES: Does the CI staff have a budget for serious research including out-sourcing of special studies and integration of appropriate processing power? PROCESS: Is the CI staff integrated into both the day to day decision-making as well as the strategic forward thinking? Nothing is dumber than "this is what we've decided to do, tell us about the path." Now my notes on this book, which fully satisfies as an overview of the above and as an introduction to the broader literature. 1. External matters. It has been a long time in comi