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The State of Competitive and Marketing Intelligence in South Africa

By Vuyani Lingela Founder, Mava Research Corporation (Vuyani@mava.co.za)


The evolution of competitive and marketing intelligence in South Africa Competitive or marketing intelligence (hereafter competitive intelligence) is gaining recognition as a business management tool and an academic discipline in South Africa. However, its level of development is nowhere closer to that of leading nations in this field, such as France, Japan, Korea, Israel, Canada, Sweden and the United States1,2. Recounting the evolution of competitive intelligence in South Africa, Viviers and Muller1 reported that, following the opening of the South African economy to the international market after the first democratic elections in April 1994, competitive intelligence was associated with industrial espionage because of the connotation made between intelligence and spying by the security forces of the apartheid regime. This perception was exacerbated by the fact that former apartheid security officials who became competitive intelligence consultants were mostly involved in counterintelligence using less ethical information gathering activities. The new government was also actively probing whether competitive intelligence is a legal activity and whether practitioners were not conducting activities that clashed with those of the state security and intelligence establishment. The management aspect of competitive intelligence gradually overtook the counter-intelligence and security aspects and, with that change, the number of competitive intelligent practitioners increased. The first chapter of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) Southern Africa was established, followed by the second association, the South African Association of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SAACIP), which was established in 1999. In December 2003, SCIP had 18 members in South Africa1. Unfortunately, due to declining membership, there two groups were not functioning in 2010. As a result, there is no recognised list of practicing competitive intelligence professionals in South Africa3. The role of government in supporting competitive intelligence in South Africa In South Africa, competitive intelligence is predominantly adopted by local subsidiaries of multinational companies1,4. Viviers and Muller1 explain that the more companies rely on exports and interaction with the international market, there more they are inclined to adopt competitive intelligence and the greater their understanding of the role and benefits of competitive intelligence as a strategic business decision tool. They also observed that managers that have had international exposure, because of their work at multinational or foreign firms, are more familiar with the discipline and more inclined to practice competitive intelligence. There are calls from the South African academic community2,3 for research on the role of government in supporting competitive intelligence as a means to enhance national competitiveness, following the examples of France and Canada. Du Toit3 pointed out the need to educate governments in Africa about competitive intelligence so that African countries could compete on a more equal footing with developed countries. This need is informed by the understanding that the goal of competitive intelligence is to provide actionable intelligence that could have an impact on the competitiveness of an organisation, company or country. Unique competitive intelligence functions to South Africa Even though the practice of competitive intelligence differs across firms and countries, the best practice in the process of competitive intelligence involves the development of intelligence

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The State of Competitive and Marketing Intelligence in South Africa products, their flow to decision makers on a timely basis, and the incorporation of the said intelligence into the decision making process 5. An example to illustrate the differences in the practice of competitive intelligence across firms and countries is the analyses of the impact of changes in the regulatory environment in a structured and formalised real-time manner, which is particularly unique competitive intelligence function to local subsidiaries of multinational companies based in South Africa1. This is because companies in South Africa are required by law to report the number of people they employ from previously disadvantaged groups (i.e., non-whites, females and disabled people) in various levels of their company and should meet certain targets. Because failure to report on progress may result in heavy penalties, companies operating in South Africa have the necessary administrative and reporting structures in place to comply with the law1. References 1. Viviers, W. and Muller, M-L. 2004. The evolution of competitive intelligence in South Africa: Early 1980s2003. Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management 2(2): 53-67. 2. Viviers, W., Muller M-L. and Du Toit, A.S.A. 2005. Competitive intelligence: An instrument to enhance South Africa's competitiveness. South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences 8(2): 246-254. 3. Du Toit, A. 2012. Using competitiveness to enhance Africas competitiveness: Practices in South Africa. Proceedings of 2012 International Conference on Electronics, Information and Communication Engineering, March 1-2, 2012, Macau. 4. Muller, M-L. 2007. Global competitive intelligence practice. South African Journal of Information Management 9(4), doi: 10.4102/sajim.v9i4.36 5. Muller, M-L. 2012. Beyond Competitive Intelligence Innovation through Competitive Strategy. IBIS

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