Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
Intelligence:
Acquisitions Editor:
Development Editor:
Senior Managing Editor:
Managing Editor:
Assistant Managing Editor:
Copy Editor:
Typesetter:
Cover Design:
Printed at:
Kristin Klinger
Kristin Roth
Jennifer Neidig
Sara Reed
Sharon Berger
April Schmidt and Erin Meyer
Jamie Snavely
Lisa Tosheff
Yurchak Printing Inc.
Table of Contents
Foreword .............................................................................................................................................. xi
Preface ................................................................................................................................................. xii
Acknowledgment ............................................................................................................................... xvi
Section I
Understanding Strategic Intelligence
Chapter I
Leveraging What Your Company Really Knows:
A Process View of Strategic Intelligence / Donald Marchand and Amy Hykes .................................... 1
Chapter II
Business Intelligence: Benefits, Applications, and Challenges /
Stuart Maguire and Habibu Suluo ....................................................................................................... 14
Section II
Strategic Intelligence Framework and Practice
Chapter III
The Nature of Strategic Intelligence, Current Practice and Solutions /
Mark Xu and Roland Kaye ................................................................................................................... 36
Chapter IV
A Strategic Marketing Intelligence Framework Reinforced by Corporate Intelligence/
Peter Trim and Yang-Im Lee ................................................................................................................ 55
Chapter V
Supporting Executive Intelligence Activities with Agent-Based
Executive Information Systems / Vincent Ong, Yanqing Duan, and Brian Mathews .......................... 69
Chapter VI
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in
South Africa and Spain / Udo Richard Averweg and Jos L. Roldn .................................................. 87
Section III
Enhancing Environment Scanning and Intelligence Practice: Techniques
Chapter VII
Understanding Key Intelligence Needs (KINs) /Adeline du Toit ....................................................... 111
Chapter VIII
Awareness and Assessment of Strategic Intelligence: A Diagnostic Tool / Franois Brouard .......... 122
Chapter IX
Gaining Strategic Intelligence Through the Firms Market Value:
The Hospitality Industry / Juan Luis Nicolau .................................................................................... 141
Chapter X
Knowledge Creation and Sharing: A Role for Complex Methods of
Inquiry and Paraconsistent Logic / Peter Bednar and Christine Welch ............................................ 159
Section IV
Supporting Strategic Intelligence Processing: Technologies
Chapter XI
Using Grid for Data Sharing to Support Intelligence in Decision Making /
Nik Bessis, Tim French, Marina Burakova-Lorgnier, and Wei Huang .............................................. 179
Chapter XII
Intelligent Supply Chain Management with Automatic Identification Technology /
Dong Li, Xiaojun Wang, Kinchung Liu, and Dennis Kehoe .............................................................. 202
Chapter XIII
An Ontology-Based Intelligent System Model for Semantic Information Process /
Mark Xu, Vincent Ong, and Yanqing Duan ........................................................................................ 224
Chapter XIV
Bibliometry Technique and Software for Patent Intelligence Mining /
Henri Dou and Jean-Marie Dou ........................................................................................................ 241
Section I
Understanding Strategic Intelligence
Chapter I
Leveraging What Your Company Really Knows:
A Process View of Strategic Intelligence / Donald Marchand and Amy Hykes .................................... 1
Strategic intelligence is about having the right information in the hands of the right people at the right
time so that those people are able to make informed business decisions about the future of the business.
Thus, in order to improve a companys strategic intelligence process, management must take a critical
look at how effectively they manage information. Effective information management requires specific
information-processing practices, employee behaviors and values, and technology. The information
orientation (IO) framework is a tool that managers can use to determine the companys level of effective
information management and to identify areas where they can make improvements. By achieving IO
maturityaligning processes, people behaviors, and technology practices with business strategiesa
company can derive a competitive advantage and future leadership. IO mature companies are most successful at collecting and openly sharing the strategic intelligence that their employees need in order to
successfully monitor and proactively react to future market trends or events.
Chapter II
Business Intelligence: Benefits, Applications, and Challenges /
Stuart Maguire and Habibu Suluo ....................................................................................................... 14
The main aim of this chapter is to identify the important role of business intelligence in todays global
business environment and to reveal organizations understanding of business intelligence and how they
plan to use it for gaining competitive advantage. Increases in business volatility and competitive pressures
have led to organizations throughout the world facing unprecedented challenges to remain competitive
and striving to achieve a position of competitive advantage. The importance of business intelligence
(BI) to their continued success should not be underestimated. With BI, companies can quickly identify
market opportunities and take advantage of them in a fast and effective manner. The aim of this chapter
is to identify the important role of BI and to understand and describe its applications in areas such as
corporate performance management, customer relationship management and supply chain management.
The study was conducted in two companies that use BI in their daily operations. Data were collected
through questionnaires, personal interviews, and observations. The study identified that external data
sources are becoming increasingly important in the information equation as the external business environment can define an organizations success or failure by their ability to effectively disseminate this
plethora of potential intelligence.
Section II
Strategic Intelligence Framework and Practice
Chapter III
The Nature of Strategic Intelligence, Current Practice and Solutions /
Mark Xu and Roland Kaye ................................................................................................................... 36
This chapter discusses the nature of strategic intelligence and the challenges of systematically scanning and processing strategic information. It reveals that strategic intelligence practice concentrates on
competitive intelligence gathering, non-competitive related intelligence have not yet been systematically scanned and processed. Much of the intelligence is collected through informal and manual based
systems. Turning data into analyzed, meaningful intelligence for action is limited to a few industry leaders. The chapter proposed a corporate intelligence solution, which comprises of three key intelligence
functions, namely organizational-wide intelligence scanning, knowledge enriched intelligent refining,
and specialist support. A corporate radar system (CRS) for external environment scanning, which is a
part of the organizational-wide intelligence scanning process is explored in light of latest technology
development. Implementation issues are discussed. The chapter develops insight of strategic intelligence,
and the solution could significantly enhance a managers and a companys sensibility and capability in
dealing with external opportunities and threats.
Chapter IV
A Strategic Marketing Intelligence Framework Reinforced by Corporate Intelligence/
Peter Trim and Yang-Im Lee ................................................................................................................ 55
The chapter examines how marketing strategists and corporate intelligence officers can work together in
order to provide a high level, pro-active strategic intelligence operation that enhances marketing strategy
development and implementation. A variety of activities relating to marketing strategy, corporate intelligence and corporate security are highlighted. Aspects of corporate counterintelligence are addressed
in the context of gathering intelligence, and guidance is provided as to how organizational strategists
can develop a strategic marketing intelligence framework that incorporates a counterintelligence dimension. The main advantage of the strategic marketing intelligence framework is that it acts as a vehicle to
integrate the organizational intelligence efforts and activities at the highest-level. It also facilitates the
creation of an intelligence culture.
Chapter V
Supporting Executive Intelligence Activities with Agent-Based
Executive Information Systems / Vincent Ong, Yanqing Duan, and Brian Mathews .......................... 69
This chapter examines the theoretical underpinning for supporting executive intelligence activities
and reviews conventional studies of executive information systems (EIS) over the last two decades in
responding to the current executives information processing needs and the current Internet era. The
reviews suggest the need for designing advanced EIS that are capable of responding and adapting
to executive information. This chapter recognizes the necessity of revitalizing EIS with advances in
intelligent technologies and Web-based technologies. Empirical studies were conducted to elucidate
executives desires and perceptions of the prospect of agent-based technologies for supporting executive
intelligence activities in the more integrated and distributed environment of the Internet. Based on the
insights gained from empirical studies, this chapter concludes by presenting a three-level agent-based
EIS design model that comprises a usability-adaptability-intelligence trichotomy for supporting executive intelligence activities.
Chapter VI
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in
South Africa and Spain / Udo Richard Averweg and Jos L. Roldn .................................................. 87
Strategically important information for executive decision-making is often not readily available since
it may be scattered in an organizations internal and external environments. An executive information
system (EIS) is a computer-based technology designed in response to specific needs of executives and
for decision-making. Executives having the right information for strategic decision-making is considered critical for strategic intelligence (SQ). SQ is the ability to interpret cues and develop appropriate strategies for addressing the future impact of these cues. In order to gauge the current situation in
respect of information in an EIS and for managing future EIS development, the authors research EIS in
organizations in two selected countries: South Africa and Spain. From their EIS study, parallelisms and
differences are identified and implications for SQ are discussed. Some practical implications for future
EIS development are given. The authors suggest these should be considered so that SQ for executive
decision-making is facilitated.
Section III
Enhancing Environment Scanning and Intelligence Practice: Techniques
Chapter VII
Understanding Key Intelligence Needs (KINs) /Adeline du Toit ....................................................... 111
This chapter explains how to translate an organizations strategic aims into key intelligence needs (KINs)
and how to prioritize and categorize the needs. It argues that an essential aspect for any competitive
intelligence (CI) professional is to gain the confidence of management to determine what information
about the environment should be collected in order to produce intelligence. Furthermore the author
hope that understanding how to determine a set of KINs as derived from an organizations vision, mission, and strategic objectives and how to break down KINs into general and specific KINs will assist
CI professionals to understand what their internal customers want to know about, need to know about
and should know about and why, when they need to know it, and who needs to know it by identifying
KINs. The application of KINs in a practical situation is illustrated in a case study of a South African
company in the furniture industry.
Chapter VIII
Awareness and Assessment of Strategic Intelligence: A Diagnostic Tool / Franois Brouard .......... 122
This chapter discuss the need for organizations to raise the level of awareness about strategic intelligence.
It argues that improvement of awareness and scanning practices could be done by developing a diagnostic tool. The diagnostic tool is an expert system that makes the existing strategic intelligence practices
and underlying processes more explicit and contributes to improved awareness of strategic intelligence
practices. Furthermore, the author hopes that presenting a diagnostic tool will help increase the level of
awareness and provide an assessment framework about strategic intelligence practices.
Chapter IX
Gaining Strategic Intelligence Through the Firms Market Value:
The Hospitality Industry / Juan Luis Nicolau .................................................................................... 141
This chapter uses the market value to assess the different factors and actors that influence the firm performance. The market value of a company, obtained from the stock exchange, can be used to both, detect
and measure the impact of elements of the role, market, and far environment. The empirical application
analyzes the hospitality industry that is currently facing an increasingly complex business environment:
apart from the terms uncertainty, complexity, and dynamism that shape the environment, in this industry
the concepts of munificence and illiberality are strongly applied. This procedure can aid in scanningrelated activities, as the analysis shows that environmental events are recognized quite well.
Chapter X
Knowledge Creation and Sharing: A Role for Complex Methods of
Inquiry and Paraconsistent Logic / Peter Bednar and Christine Welch ............................................ 159
Strategic intelligence involves examination of internal and external organizational environments. Of
course people inhabited each of these environments. Whether they are customers, allies or employees, these are not standardized units but real human beings with personal histories, perspectives, and
opinions. Recent research and practice have led to the development of relatively complex methods
for inquiry which can be applied by human analysts and which recognize contextual dependencies in
a problem situation. One such method, the strategic systemic thinking framework, is outlined in this
chapter. The purpose of complex analysis in relation to strategic intelligence is not, in our perspective,
decision-makingit is developing an ability to make informed decisions. Until software tools could
not support recently complex methods, since the limitations of traditional mathematical algorithms
constrained their development. We suggest a model, which lays the foundations for the development of
software support and can tolerate the inherent ambiguity in complex analysis, based on paraconsistent
(multivalued) mathematical logic.
Section IV
Supporting Strategic Intelligence Processing: Technologies
Chapter XI
Using Grid for Data Sharing to Support Intelligence in Decision Making /
Nik Bessis, Tim French, Marina Burakova-Lorgnier, and Wei Huang .............................................. 179
This chapter is about conceptualizing the applicability of grid related technologies for supporting intelligence in decision-making. It aims to discuss how the open grid service architecturedata, access
integration (OGSA-DAI) can facilitate the discovery of and controlled access to vast data-sets, to assist
intelligence in decision making. Trust is also identified as one of the main challenges for intelligence in
decision-making. On this basis, the implications and challenges of using grid technologies to serve this
purpose are also discussed. To further the explanation of the concepts and practices associated with the
process of intelligence in decision-making using grid technologies, a minicase is employed incorporating a scenario. That is to say, Synergy Financial Solutions Ltd is presented as the minicase, so as to
provide the reader with a central and continuous point of reference.
Chapter XII
Intelligent Supply Chain Management with Automatic Identification Technology /
Dong Li, Xiaojun Wang, Kinchung Liu, and Dennis Kehoe .............................................................. 202
RFID-enabled business models are proposed in this chapter to innovate supply chain management.
The models demonstrated benefits from automatically captured real-time information in supply chain
operations. The resulting visibility creates chances to operate businesses in more responsive, dynamic,
and efficient scenarios. The actual initiative of such novel RFID enabled applications is therefore to
encourage intelligent supply chain management to dynamically respond changes and events in real-time.
As the RFID implementation costs are continuously decreasing, it is expected that more novel business
models would be inspired by the technological advancement to foster more intelligent supply chains in
the near future.
Chapter XIII
An Ontology-Based Intelligent System Model for Semantic Information Process /
Mark Xu, Vincent Ong, and Yanqing Duan ........................................................................................ 224
In the context of increasing usage of intelligent agent and ontology technologies in business, this study
explores the ways of adopting these technologies to revitalize current executive information systems (EIS)
with a focus on semantic information scanning, filtering, and reporting/alerting. Executives perceptions
on an agent-based EIS are investigated through a focus group study in the UK, and the results are used
to inform the design of such a system. A visualization prototype has been developed to demonstrate
the main features of the system. This study presents a specific business domain for which ontology and
intelligent agent technology could be applied to advance information processing for executives.
Chapter XIV
Bibliometry Technique and Software for Patent Intelligence Mining /
Henri Dou and Jean-Marie Dou ........................................................................................................ 241
This chapter introduces the bibliometry treatment techniques as a way to obtain elaborated information
for Competitive Intelligence experts. It presents various bibliometry treatments using software able to
analyze patent databases as well as commercial database extracts or Web information. With the growing
complexity of science, technology, and economy it is of a prime importance for decision makers and
strategists to have the best possible view of their environment. The bibliometry analysis provides different ways to cross information, build lists, charts, matrices, and networks. In the process of knowledge
creation the bibliometry analysis can be used to provide new set of information from large mount of
data. This information can be used for brain storming, SWOT analysis, and expert evaluation.
xi
Foreword
Enron, WorldCom, Vivendi, Pramalat, the list goes on and the shockwaves of these companies collapse
can be felt across the globe. Certainly we have seen tightening of regulation but this alone will not stop
the continued failure of firms. What is apparent from the failure is that not only did corporate governance
systems fail but also the information being used by boards of directors and investors to make strategic
decisions was inadequate and underutilized. This book is timely in that it provides an update of the state
of strategic intelligence systems. The emergence of intelligence systems from the areas of management
information systems, executive information systems, and competitive intelligence sees a shift from
internal data to external and from historic to future orientated information.
Senior management needs the support and challenge of divergent and challenging information. The
stimulus of new information and ideas helps drive forward the business. The editor has brought together
an existing and innovative collection of articles that map current developments in strategic intelligence.
The progression of data to information and knowledge is a process of sense-making. This sense-making
emphasizes the pull of enquiry rather than the push of data. Intelligence is the structuring of meaning
coming from the scanning of the environment and performance of the firm. These are the skills needed
in the corporate boardrooms and investment communities if they are to avoid the catastrophic collapses.
This collection provides a stimulating review of all aspects of Managing Strategic Intelligence: Techniques to Technologies.
xii
Preface
Information is a key resource of a contemporary organization that deserves effective management. Gaining information and knowledge to develop foresight about future opportunities and threats and quickly reacting to the
opportunities and threats becomes a core competency of a winning organization. This is evident (www.50lessons.
com) by the following remarks from executives:
Its important for any organisation to continually reappraise the business environment and how it might change.
Thinking about changes that might take place, and being ready to respond to them with well-developed plans that
are properly executed, means the organisation will move much faster than its competitors to any such scenarios.
~ Paul Skinner, Rio Tinto Plc
Spotting and seizing opportunities that mark major shifts in a companys strategy takes a lot of couragebut is
invaluable to an organisations progress. ~ Peter Birch, Land Securities Group
In todays rapidly changing business world the need for timely and accurate market intelligence will increase.
We need to know what our competitors are doing almost before they do. ~ A manager from Royal Life Plc
The analogy between the business world and the battlefield is not something beyond comprehension. Being
wary of the enemy is a consistent theme in the writing of the art of war. For example, Sun Tzu (403-221 BC)
wrote,1
The reason why the enlightened ruler and the wise general are able to conquer the enemy whenever they lead
the army and can achieve victories that surpass those of others is because of foreknowledge.
Know yourself, know your enemies; a hundred battles, a hundred victories;
Know your enemy, know yourself, and your victory will not be threatened. Know the terrain, know the weather,
and your victory will be complete.
The urgency of effectively managing strategic intelligence is reinforced by two trends witnessed: one is the
business environment becomes more turbulent and competition becomes ever fiercer, thus gaining strategic intelligence and sharing knowledge become one of the greatest challenges that faces a companys senior management.
The other is computing technology for information processing that has become more sophisticated and more
affordable, which offers great potential to advance the current techniques and technologies used for intelligence
gathering, processing, dissemination, and knowledge sharing.
To be more specific, managing strategic intelligence faces the following challenges: firstly, the nature and the
importance of strategic intelligence are not often understood by many organizations until crises and problems
occurred. Secondly, strategically important information, that is, strategic intelligence, is not a piece of static
information that is readily available. It is often scatted in the organizations internal and external environment,
which requires scanning effort. The subjects may be unfamiliar to the inquirer, and the scanning process may
be costly. Thirdly, interpreting intelligence is essentially a human cognition and intuition process that is subtle.
xiii
Strategic intelligence needs sense making of senior managers, which requires managerial knowledge and judgement that are not often possible for computers to posses. Fourthly, an individual manager has limited capacity
to notice and process all the information from the internal and external environments, which results in limiting
the scope of input coverage and the stretch of the output delivery. Lastly, the ad hoc behavior of managers in
acquiring/receiving strategic intelligence and functionally divided intelligence process in organizations lead to
misjudgement and corporate blind spots.
Where there is an unanswered question, there is an undiscovered answer. The challenges in managing
strategic intelligence will be met by emerging techniques and technologies. This can be envisaged from two
perspectives: first, organizations that are actively engaged in competitive intelligence gathering, business intelligence mining are often their industry leaders. The techniques and strategies used by these organizations have
wide implications to improve the practice of managing strategic intelligence. Second, the latest development
in Internet technology, intelligent agent, ontology, semantic Web, data mining, wireless sensors, and scanning
technologies provide opportunities for organizations to revitalize existing or to develop new infrastructure of
managing strategic intelligence.
This book, thus aims to develop sound understanding of strategic intelligence and to exhibit techniques and
technologies that can be used to enhance strategic intelligence scanning, analyzing, interpreting, sense-making, and support. The realm of the book is not limited to competitive intelligence, but also includes intelligence
from an organizations far environment and beyond. The book provides a rich source of research on the current
practice in intelligence gathering, latest thinking and conceptual models related to intelligence function, process,
structure, and culture, which will underpin future development and implementation of innovative intelligence
systems. The book offers not only technical solutions, but also organizational solutions for organizations to adopt
so as to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of managing strategic intelligence.
The primary target audience of this book will be senior managers, IS/IT managers, information officers,
knowledge workers, intelligence specialists of any organisations that need to enhance their organizations sensibility and capability towards environmental changes and challenges. The book provides future direction and
practical guidance to system developers to develop novel system for managing strategic intelligence. It will be
of value to business consultants, researchers, academics, senior undergraduates, and students at master level, as
it provides a wealth of information and references for research into this challenging arena.
Fourteen chapters are included in this book. They are organized into four sections according to the thematic
meaning of the topic of the chapter, which is based on the arbitrary judgement of the editor. Thus, it is quite
possible that a paper in one section may also address issues in other sections. Even though, the four sections
reflect most of the topics sought in the initial call for chapters.
The first section, Section I: Understanding Strategic Intelligence, includes two chapters. This section
focuses on the theme of understanding the concept and the importance of strategic intelligence and the related
terminologies.
The second section, Section II: Strategic Intelligence Framework and Practice, includes four chapters.
Chapters III-V focus on framework and conceptual models related to managing intelligence. Chapter VI reports
some empirical findings of intelligence from Executive Information Systems.
The third section, Section III: Enhancing Environmental Scanning and Intelligence Practice: Techniques,
comprises four chapters. Chapter VII presents a unique technique to identify intelligence needs. Chapter VIII
introduces a diagnostic tool to assess environment scanning practice. Chapter IX demonstrates a mathematic
model showing the relationship between environment factors and corporate performance. Chapter X discusses
complex methods of inquiry and paraconsistent logic from soft system perspective.
The last section, Section IV: Supporting Strategic Intelligence Processing: Technologies, includes four
chapters. This section develops the theme on technologies for intelligence processing. Grid technology, radio
frequency identification (RFID) technology, intelligent agent, ontology technology, and bibliometry technology
are discussed in the context of managing strategic intelligence.
A brief introduction to each of the chapters follows:
xiv
Chapter I, Leveraging What Your Company Really Knows: A Process View of Strategic Intelligence, by
Professor Marchand and Hykes: The authors introduce the information orientation (IO) frameworka tool that
managers can use to determine the companys level of effective information management and to identify areas
where they can make improvements. They suggest that effective information management requires specific information-processing practices, employee behaviors and values, and technology. Examples are used to demonstrate
that IO mature companies are most successful at collecting and openly sharing strategic intelligence that their
employees need in order to successfully monitor and proactively react to future market trends or events.
Chapter II, Business Intelligence: Benefits, Applications, and Challenges, by Maguire and Suluo: The chapter
identifies the important role and challenges of business intelligence (BI) in business functioncorporate finance,
supply chain management (SCM), and customer relationship management (CRM). It addresses the question
how companies understand BI and how companies use it for gaining competitive advantage by using two case
companies that are currently using ERP and BI.
Chapter III, The Nature of Strategic Intelligence, Current Practice and Solutions, by Xu and Kaye: In this
chapter, the authors discuss the nature of strategic intelligence from various perspectives, for example, internalexternal view, historical-future view, and the challenges of scanning, analysing and interpreting intelligence.
Empirical evidence is used to demonstrate the current practice of intelligence gathering. The authors suggest a
solution that comprises of organisational-wide intelligence scanning which incorporates a corporate radar system
(CRS), knowledge enriched intelligence refining and intelligence specialist support. Implementation issues are
also addressed.
Chapter IV, A Strategic Marketing Intelligence Framework Reinforced by Corporate Intelligence, by Trim
and Lee: The authors examine how marketing strategists and corporate intelligence officers can work together in
order to provide a high level, proactive strategic intelligence operation that enhances marketing strategy development and implementation. Aspects of corporate counterintelligence are addressed in the context of gathering
intelligence, and guidance is provided as to how organizational strategists can develop a strategic marketing
intelligence framework that incorporates a counterintelligence dimension.
Chapter V, Supporting Executive Intelligence Activities with Agent-Based Executive Information Systems, by
Ong, Duan, and Mathews: The authors review the theoretical underpinning for supporting executive intelligence
activities, and argue the necessity of revitalizing EIS with intelligent technologies and Web-based technologies. A three-level agent-based EIS model that comprises a usability-adaptability-intelligence trichotomy for
supporting executive intelligence activities is designed, which is based on empirical studies conducted with
executives in the UK.
Chapter VI, Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain, by
Averweg and Roldn: This chapter reports empirical findings on the current situation in respect of information
in EIS based on survey of companies in South Africa and Spain. Parallelisms and differences are identified and
implications for gathering strategic intelligence and improving EIS development are discussed.
Chapter VII, Understanding Key Intelligence Needs (KINs), by du Toit: The author explains how to translate
an organizations strategic aims into key intelligence needs (KINs) and how to prioritise and categorise the
needs. Determining a set of KINs and how to break down KINs into general and specific KINs will assist CI
(competitive intelligence) professionals to gather appropriate competitor intelligence. The application of KINs
in a practical situation is illustrated using a case study of a South African company.
Chapter VIII, Awareness and Assessment of Strategic Intellgence: A Diagnostic Tool, by Brouard. In this
chapter, the author adresses the importance of awareness and assessment from managers and external consultants
on strategic intelligence activities in organizations, and presentes an expert-system based diagnostic tool for
firms to assess the level of environment scanning for intelligence. Problem of awareness and assessment faced
by organizations are identified and discussed.
Chapter IX, Gaining Strategic Intelligence Through the Firms Market Value: The Hospitality Industry, by
Nicolau: The author develops a mathematic model to examine the impact that different factors and actors within
the environment have on a firms performance, which is measured by the stock market value of the firm. Direct
xv
link between the environmental factors and their effects on firm performance is found. The model not only detects
the events affecting the organization but also quantifies their impacts.
Chapter X, Knowledge Creation and Sharing: A Role for Complex Methods of Inquiry and Paraconsistent
Logic, by Bednar and Welch: The authors discuss complex methods for inquiry as an emerging method to address
a problem situation encountered by human analyst during the process of intelligence gathering and knowledge
sharing. The purpose of complex analysis in relation to strategic intelligence is to develop an ability to make
informed decisions. A model which lays the foundations for the development of software support, which can
tolerate the inherent ambiguity in complex analysis, based on paraconsistent (multivalued) mathematical logic
is developed.
Chapter XI, Using Grid for Data Sharing to Support Intelligence in Decision-Making, by Bessis, French,
Burakova-Lorgnier, and Huang: The authors conceptualizes the applicability of grid related technologies for
supporting intelligence in decision-making. The chapter addresses how the open Grid service architecturedata,
access integration (OGSA-DAI) can facilitate the discovery of and controlled access to vast datasets, to assist
intelligence in decision making. A minicase is employed incorporating a scenario.
Chapter XII, Intelligent Supply Chain Management with Automatic Identification Technology, by Li, Wang,
Liu, and Kehoe: The authors develop a RFID-enabled business model in order to innovate supply chain management. The model demonstrated benefits from automatically captured real-time information in supply chain
operations. The resulting visibility creates chances to operate businesses in more responsive, dynamic, and efficient scenarios.
Chapter XIII, Developing an Ontology-Based Intelligent System for Semantic Information Processing, by
Xu with Ong and Duan: The authors in this chapter explore the ways of adopting intelligent agent and ontology
technologies to revitalise executive information systems (EIS) with a focus on semantic information scanning,
filtering and reporting/alerting. Executives perceptions on an agent-based EIS are investigated through a focus
group study in the UK, and the results are used to inform the design of such a system. This study presents a
specific business domain for which ontology and intelligent agent technology could be applied to advance information processing for executives.
Chapter XIV, Bibliometry Technique and Software for Patent Intelligence Mining, by H. Dou and J.-M. Dou:
The authors provide useful insight into the techniques of using bibliometry software to mine intelligence from
both formatted and unformatted data sources. Patent intelligence mining is used as an example. It demonstrates
how bibliometry information can add value to the intelligence process. An overview of the bibliometry software
is provided.
EndnotE
1
Ames, R. (1993). Sun Tzu: The Art of Warfare. New York: Ballantine Books.
xvi
Acknowledgment
The efforts of many people are reflected in this book. I wish to thank all the authors who contributed their insightful
ideas and chapters to this book. Without whose support the project could not have been satisfactorily completed.
Most of the authors of chapters included in this book also served as referees for articles written by other authors.
Special thanks go to all those who provided constructive and comprehensive reviews. Among those, I would like
to particularly mention Professor Adeline du Toit from University of Johannesburg, South Africa; Dr. Franois
Brouard from Carleton University, Canada; Dr. Peter Trim from Birkbeck College, University of London; and
Dr. Yanqing Duan from University of Bedfordshire, UK for their most critical comments.
My deep appreciation is due to professor G. Roland Kaye, former president of CIMA, for his continuous
professional guidance and advice on research into the area of managing strategic information as a corporate
resource.
I wish to extend my special thanks to staff at IGI Global, whose support, guidance and encouragement throughout the whole process have been invaluable. In particular, to Kristin Roth and Meg Stocking, who continuously
provide guidance and prompt responses for keeping the project on schedule and to Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, whose
enthusiasm motivated me to initially accept his invitation for taking on this project.
I would like to acknowledge the support from the Department of Strategy and Business Systems, Portsmouth
Business School of University of Portsmouth, in particular, the departments research committee for the support
to develop research including this project.
Finally, I want to thank my wife and children for their love and support throughout this project.
Mark Xu, PhD
Portsmouth, UK
October 2006
xvii
Section I
Understanding Strategic
Intelligence
xviii
Chapter I
AbstrAct
Strategic intelligence is about having the right information in the hands of the right people at the right
time so that those people are able to make informed business decisions about the future of the business.
Thus, in order to improve a companys strategic intelligence process, management must take a critical
look at how effectively they manage information. Effective information management requires specific
information-processing practices, employee behaviors and values, and technology. The information
orientation (IO) framework is a tool that managers can use to determine the companys level of effective
information management and to identify areas where they can make improvements. By achieving IO
maturityaligning processes, people behaviors, and technology practices with business strategiesa
company can derive a competitive advantage and future leadership. IO mature companies are most
successful at collecting and openly sharing the strategic intelligence that their employees need in order
to successfully monitor and proactively react to future market trends or events.
IntroductIon
Strategic intelligence is about having the right
information in the hands of the right people at the
right time so that those people are able to make
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
WhAt Is strAtEgIc
IntEllIgEncE?
Strategic intelligence should provide a company
with the information it needs about its business
environment to be able to anticipate change, design
appropriate strategies that will create business
value for customers and create future growth and
profits for the company in new markets within or
across industries. Strategic intelligence should
not be equated with:
Time
Functional Approach
The functional approach is similar to the traditional military model as noted earlier. Functionally
oriented companies have many pools of external
and internal intelligence that the functional departments collect and sometimes use in making
decisions. For example, the sales department
collects information on customer contacts, transactions and services; the marketing department
conducts surveys on market trends and customer
satisfaction; the R&D group analyzes technology
developments and new product ideas; the manufacturing function focuses on process innovations and product engineering; the information
technology unit monitors IT industry trends and
process Approach
In contrast, the process approach is based on
a very different set of assumptions. First, not all
knowledge or decision-making responsibility
lies at the top of the company and strategic intelligence should be organized to address the needs
of the business unit and other general managers.
Second, sharing strategic intelligence rather than
processing it centrally encourages a diversity of
EFFEctIvE InForMAtIon
MAnAgEMEnt IMpActs
FuturE pErForMAncE
Ultimately, managing strategic intelligence
successfully begins with a companys ability
to effectively use information and knowledge
about customers, products, services, operations,
finances, markets, and trends to impact future
business performance. During a major three-year
research study involving over 100 companies
representing some 22 countries and 25 industries,
we established a link between effective information use in a company and three key capabilitiespeoples behaviors and values, information
management practices, and information management technology practices. We found that how
managers deployed these three key capabilities
not only impacted information use, but it also
strongly influenced future business performance.
Marchand, Kettinger, and Rollins (2001) view the
interaction of these three information capabilities
as one fundamental approach or measure, which
we call information orientation or IO.
There are two critical points that managers must understand in order to improve their
companys information orientation. First, each
of these capabilities alone will not provide the
company with the information, methods and
tools they need for future success. Managers
Figure 2. Information orientation (IO) framework definitions (Source: Marchand, Kettinger, & Rollins,
2001)
Information
InformationOrientation
Orientation(IO)
(IO)
Information
Information Behaviors
Behaviors and
and Values
Values (IBV)
(IBV)
Capability
Capability
The
Thecapability
capabilityof
ofaacompany
companyto
toinstill
instilland
andpromote
promotebehaviors
behaviors
and
andvalues
valuesin
inits
itspeople
peoplefor
foreffective
effectiveuse
useof
ofinformation.
information.
Proactiveness
Sharing
Transparency
Control
Formality
Integrity
Information
Information Management
Management Practices
Practices (IMP)
(IMP)
Capability
Capability
The
Thecapability
capabilityof
ofaacompany
companyto
to manage
manageinformation
informationeffectively
effectively
over
overits
itslife
lifecycle.
cycle.
Sensing
Processing
Maintaining
involves
reusing existing information to avoid collecting the same
information again,
updating information databases so that they remain current and
refreshing data
to ensure that people are using the best information available.
Organizing
includes
indexing, classifying and linking information and databases
together to provide access within and across business units and
functions;
training and rewarding employees for accurately and completely
organizing information for which they are responsible.
Collecting
Information
Information Technology
Technology Practices
Practices (ITP)
(ITP)
Capability
Capability
The
Thecapability
capabilityof
ofaacompany
companyto
toeffectively
effectivelymanage
manageappropriate
appropriateIT
IT
applications
applicationsand
andinfrastructure
infrastructurein
insupport
supportof
ofoperational
operationaldecisiondecisionmaking,
making,and
andcommunication
communicationprocesses.
processes.
Source: Donald A. Marchand, William J. Kettinger and John D. Rollins, Making the Invisible Visible: How companies win with the right information, people and IT, New York and London: John Wiley and Sons, 2001.
Business Performance
Example Company
Info behaviors and values (IBV)
Information
Information
Information
Information
Information
Information
proactiveness
sharing
transparency
control
formality
integrity
> 80%
< 35%
< 35%
> 50%
> 95%
< 5%
<
<
>
>
IBV total
IMP total
ITP total
< 50%
> 65%
> 65%
IO total
> 65%
Business performance
< 5%
50%
50%
50%
95%
Explanations
According to the legend on the right, the IO
dashboard depicts the ranking of a business
entity's or an individual's responses within our
benchmark of companies.
Legend
Top 5%
Top 20%
Top 35%
Above 50%
Below 50%
Bottom 35%
Bottom 20%
Bottom 5%
< 5%
< 5%
> 80%
< 5%
Effective implementation of all three information capabilities across the company, not
just in one or two units.
Information-oriented culture with a consistent view and understanding of how to use
information effectively to achieve future
success.
Free flow of strategic intelligence throughout
the company, regardless of the organizational
structure, because of the people behaviors,
processes and technology in place.
Ability to effectively deal with a rapidly
changing market where information and
knowledge expires quickly due to the rapid
and efficient flow of information throughout
the organization.
High expectations about future industry
leadership and effective execution of
plans.
Proactive in their response to situations,
easily changing strategies when necessary
in order to achieve success.
Keen sense of urgency about what we do
not know and what we need to know.
Interest in incorporating lessons learned
into their business practices.
On the other end of the spectrum, some characteristics of a low IO company include:
Little incentive in place for people to effectively share and use strategic information.
No synergy among its processes, people,
and technology.
Employees are encouraged to hide bad news
or mistakes and do not place a priority on
continuous improvement.
Believe that IT is the silver bullet for most
problems, so IT is frequently blamed when
things do not work.
Lack trust in the information provided to
them through formal channels.
rElAtIonshIp bEtWEEn A
coMpAnys Io MAturIty lEvEl
And Its ApproAch to
strAtEgIc IntEllIgEncE
A companys IO maturity level can influence a
companys approach to strategic intelligence or
provide it with the capability to approach it in a
more effective way. As you can see in Figure 4,
many of the high IO company characteristics are
applicable to companies with a process approach to
strategic intelligence. Similarly, low IO companies
have the same characteristics as companies with a
functional approach to strategic intelligence.
High IO companies have the ability to create a
successful process-oriented approach to strategic
intelligence. These companies have the processes,
people behaviors and technology practices in
place that allow them to freely and openly share
information in a timely fashion throughout the
company. High IO companies have a continuous
learning culture that encourages its employees to
collect, share and use diverse sources of strategic
intelligence to shape the future of the company. As
a result, the employees usually have the information they need to make informed decisions about
future performance. Thus, a high IO company is
better than their competitors at developing industry foresight and shaping business strategies
to act on their foresight. They are able to sense,
Strategic
Operational
Culture
Communication style
Management style
Control focused
Learning style
Information management
Inconsistent
Information flow
Quality of information
Process Approach
collect, manage, and respond to strategic intelligence throughout the company, which will result
in better future business performance.
Low IO companies do not have the infrastructure, processes, or incentives in place for
employees to sense, gather and share information
with one another. Executives request the strategic
information they need from specific employees
and information is not openly shared with others. As a result a lot of intelligence is left on the
table, thus many managers are not making fully
informed decisions about the companys future.
Without the infrastructure and the culture in place
these companies are typically only capable of
implementing a functional approach to strategic
intelligence.
kEys to A succEssFul
stAtEgIc IntEllIgEncE
procEss
We believe that the most effective way to organize
strategic intelligence is the process approach.
0
Low IO Maturity
Functional Approach
chAllEngEs to dEvElopIng
succEssFul strAtEgIc
IntEllIgEncE
There are several challenges managers face with
regard to developing quality strategic intelligence processes. If managers are aware of these
obstacles upfront, they can avoid falling into
the traps. First, managers must build a culture
where all employees play a role in a companys
strategic intelligence process. Companies cannot
assume that a particular function or specific senior
executives have a monopoly on strategic intelligenceinformation impacting the companys
future. The culture must be one where everyone
is responsible for anticipating and planning for
the companys future needs and opportunities.
It is in managements best interest to create forward-looking mindsets among all employees and
have everyone working towards achieving future
successes and improvements. This can be very
difficult in companies with cultures that dont
encourage sharing or in companies that view
strategic information as top secret.
Second, managers must not assume that past
explanations of success are still reliable indicators
for the future. This mindset will cause management to eventually lose touch with the future
realities of their business or industry. It produces
a reactive culture that only considers alternative
paths when a crisis occurs. Complacency bred
from past successes leads to unexamined assumptions, blind spots, and taboos that not only block
the creation of new mandates among managers
but also make it difficult to sense, communicate,
and use intelligence about future trends. Once a
company achieves success in its market, it is easy
for management to become complacent. The challenge for management is to keep the competitive
spirit and the urgency for continuous improvement
alive (Marchand, 1997).
The company launched a $200 million company wide program called The CEMEX Way.
The program had three main components: process
and systems standardization, a new governance
model, and e-enabling processes. To support
and guarantee permanent standardization, eight
so-called e-groups were made responsible for
process effectiveness. The eight e-groups consisted of business experts as well as HR and IT
representatives and were formed around the core
processes of the company. Their mandate was
to define where standardization made sense and
what had to be improved before standardizing.
The groups used a single set of methodologies
and tools to document and consolidate the best
practices around each process in order to form a
knowledge database.
Through The CEMEX Way, processes became simpler and more efficient, and knowledge
sharing and control were improved. Application
and system duplicates were avoided by providing
shareable services. At the same time, the open
corporate information structure improved CEMEXs flexibility and responsiveness to changes
in the business environment. The alignment of
processes, HR and IT facilitated quick adaptation of new practices. Best practices developed
and learned in local country operations were
quickly standardized into global business process
best practice. In this way, the new governance
model favored coordination and collaboration in
global innovation. Progressive companies, such
as CEMEX, realize that by leveraging worldwide
knowledge and best practices they can achieve
high levels of business standardization and flexibility (Kettinger & Marchand, 2005).
conclusIon
In todays information-based world, managers must treat the handling of information and
knowledge as a distinct core competency in their
company. Effective information use involves
rEFErEncEs
Hunter, R., & Aron, D. (2004). From value to
advantage: Exploiting information. Stanford,
CT: Gartner Inc.
14
Chapter II
Business Intelligence:
Abstract
The main aim of this chapter is to identify the important role of business intelligence in todays global
business environment and to reveal organizations understanding of business intelligence and how they
plan to use it for gaining competitive advantage. Increases in business volatility and competitive pressures
have led to organizations throughout the world facing unprecedented challenges to remain competitive
and striving to achieve a position of competitive advantage. The importance of business intelligence
(BI) to their continued success should not be underestimated. With BI, companies can quickly identify
market opportunities and take advantage of them in a fast and effective manner. The aim of this chapter
is to identify the important role of BI and to understand and describe its applications in areas such as
corporate performance management, customer relationship management and supply chain management.
The study was conducted in two companies that use BI in their daily operations. Data were collected
through questionnaires, personal interviews, and observations. The study identified that external data
sources are becoming increasingly important in the information equation as the external business environment can define an organizations success or failure by their ability to effectively disseminate this
plethora of potential intelligence.
Introduction
The main aim of this chapter is to identify the
important role that business intelligence can play
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Business Intelligence
2.
3.
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence
Data Warehouse
Call Center / CRM
Insight
Business Intelligence
bI And corporAtE
pErForMAncE MAnAgEMEnt
Recent research has revealed that BI is a key
cornerstone of corporate performance management in both Europe and the United States. The
most common application areas for BI are in sales
and marketing analysis, planning and forecasting, financial consolidation, statutory reporting,
budgeting, and profitability analysis (Thompson,
2004). According to Gartner Research (2002), a
study (in which 60% of respondents were from
Europe and 30% of respondents were from the
United States) revealed that BI applications in Europe and the United States are used predominantly
for profitability analysis, corporate performance
management (CPM), supply chain management
(SCM), activity-based costing (ABC), and customer relationship management (CRM).
A key part of CPM is being able to access
reliable intelligence so as to support accurate
decision-making in dynamic business environments. The intent of BI is to help decision makers
make well-informed choices (Gonzales, 2003).
Put simply providing staff with BI should lead to
better decision-making (Schauer, 2004). BI is the
process for increasing the competitive advantage
of a business by intelligently using available data
for effective decision-making (McMichael, 2005).
Searching the environment for conditions that
call for a valid decision is an intelligence activity
(Schoderbek, Schoderbek & Kefalas, 1990).
In BI, decision support is about using information wisely and it aims to provide a warning about
important events like takeovers, market changes,
and staff performance, so that preventative steps
are taken (Ananthanarayan, 2002). These are
vital ingredients of effective CPM. Furthermore,
BI may improve analysis and decision-making
to improve sales, customer satisfaction or staff
morale. Similarly, according to Steadman (2003),
the goal of BI is to empower decision-makers, allowing them to make better and faster decisions.
Staff at all levels of an organization: managers,
sales representatives, order-entry or point-ofsale clerks, and supply-chain workers all work
with information. BI allows an organization to
empower people to make decisions at their point
of maximum impact, accelerating the speed of
effective decision-making. Turban et al. (2004,
p. 171) argues, placing strategic information in
the hands of decision makers aids productivity,
empowers users to make better decisions, and
improves customer service, leading to greater
competitive advantage.
The type of companies that are using them
will influence the design of CPM systems. Organizational structures influence information
usage. In traditional, hierarchical organizations
where information storage and dissemination is
closely tied to functional or divisional structures,
decision-making is often achieved through committees (Hall, 2000). The intelligence function of
information may be lost as its potential for being
utilized is restricted by rigid reporting channels.
It is generally accepted that information normally
tracks up or down hierarchies, but rarely across
divisions. In contrast, Hall (2000) argues that
firms with freer organizational structures allow
for easier communication of information through
their dependence on interpersonal networking
and spontaneous team-building. However, the
intelligence function of the information sources
used can be fluid and uncertain and may be hidden
in information overload. Individual experts may
know the detail of an issue, but not the context
and therefore could make poor business decisions
on the basis of incomplete data.
Furthermore, according to Hall (2000), it
might be argued that the second model is more
conducive to the development of BI because each
individual has more interpersonal connections,
so information should flow more freely between
these nodes and generate more ideas and further
questions. What has been traditionally regarded
as an unproductive activity might, in fact, be
the opposite when information is learnt through
chance meetings, shared interests and serendip-
Business Intelligence
External
Data
External
Data
0
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence
Staff Member
Comments
ORG 1
Chief Executive
Officer
We believe our role is to assist our customers by providing them with the information they
need to make informed choices.
ORG 1
Company Chairman
I was attracted to this job because we have one of the most famous retail brands in the
world.
ORG 1
Business policies are produced using business intelligence gathered by our team in Head
Office.
ORG 1
Marketing Manager
Knowing what our customers want and what our customers are doing is business
intelligence.
ORG 1
Business intelligence derived from CRM enables us to provide a wide range of intelligent
clothing for the 21st century.
Staff Member
Comments
ORG 2
Business Systems
Manager
We provide for quality information ... what makes us first choice for our customers is that
we know the competition ... in essence we provide business intelligence.
ORG 2
We have a significantly larger manufacturer customer base than any of our competitors
... we have to enhance existing products and develop new ones ... we need quality
information.
ORG 2
By using a range of data collection methods it has been possible to get a true reflection of
the trends appearing in the usage and provision of information.
ORG 2
Senior Mktg.
Manager
ORG 2
Senior Administrator
In our business we dont really have an asset ... our asset is informationthat is our
core business. We sell data we store data, we manage data ... the focus is information
management.
ORG 2
Business Systems
Manager
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence
ENVIRONMENTAL
ANALYSIS
COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGE
MARKETING
ANALYSIS
COMPETITIVE STRATEGY
INTERNAL INFORMATION
EXTERNAL INFORMATION
Figure 5. Information streams for deriving competitive advantage (Developed from ORG1 study)
Business Intelligence
Customer Data:
Name info
Job info
Address info
Subscriptions
Payment method
Accounts info
Specifier
Customer
Centre
Customer Data:
Name info
Job info
Address info
Own Product details:
(Classification, Attributes,
shipment info, manufacture info,
locations, technical details)
Advertising
Subscriptions
Contact preferences
Manufacturer
Customer
Centre
Accounts
Department
Accounts
System
Invoice generation
Invoice generation
Invoice generation
Newcastle
CRM
London
CRM
Other
Department
CRMs
Internet
Content
Managers:
analysis info
de-dupe info
proofing
rd party
data
competitor
Sales
Managers:
Refined
data
Updates
QuickAddress:
postal
address
confirmation
Sales Admin:
order details
invoice
updates
finance/
accounts
Editorial:
Data entry
Data
proofing
Telesales:
Product
Interest
Updates
Marketing:
Product
interest
Update info
Competitor
info
Marketing
feedback
Software
Support:
Bug tracking
details:
(contact,date
Business Intelligence
2.
2.
ORG1, however, appears to have more competitive advantages than ORG2 through its use of a data
warehouse, which offers the significant potential
of a repository of text-based or qualitative data,
such as the provision of a 360 view of customers
by collecting profile information from a range of
sources. Once again, the data warehouse can only
provide the potential for success and it is up to the
organization to put procedures in place to take
Business Intelligence
conclusIon
This chapter has put forward business intelligence
(BI) as a potential driver for gaining corporate
success. The chapter looked at the relationship
between BI and decision-making as well as how
the use of BI might be affected by an organizations
structure. It was also important to isolate BIs
integration within the key areas of CPM, CRM
and SCM. BI has been defined in different ways
by the authors and applied differently to organizations. Similarly, BI is understood and applied
differently by ORG1 and ORG2. The differences
are caused by situational awareness created from
not only data and information analysis but also
environmental analysis. It can be argued that there
are four main perspectives in relation to BI: collecting data and/or information, converting data
to information, decision-making, and a rational
approach to management. BI has been identified in
business functions such as CRM, SCM, Customer
Services, Marketing and Decision Making. It is
specifically decision-making of a strategic nature
that has the closest links to competitor intelligence.
It is difficult to imagine how organizations can
constructively formulate business plans without
a clear insight into the corresponding strategy of
their competitors.
The findings of the research showed that ORG1
and ORG2 use both active and passive intelligence
to collect competitors business data and information while observing confidentiality, ethical
issues, and the Data Protection Act. External data
sources are becoming increasingly important in
the information equation. Data and information
collected can be structured or unstructured,
and they include customer taste/fashions, brand
perceptions, market trends, price trends, competi-
Business Intelligence
0
The authors believe that intelligence, and specifically competitor intelligence, should be a major
cornerstone of any future corporate information
system. Organizations must be able to adapt to
their current and future business environments
in order to survive. Without BI their chances may
be greatly reduced. It is important that business
researchers are aware of the utilization of this
intelligence in decision-making activities. Armed
with this intelligence organizations will be in a
better position to undertake business planning
and control in the future.
Small and medium-sized enterprises may be
the big winners in the future. They may be agile
and flexible enough to take advantage of even
smaller quantities of BI. They may not be saddled
with existing legacy systems that formalize the
decision-making process in a time-consuming
way. They may be in a better position to deal
with unstructured and external intelligence
(refer to figure 4). They may be able to be more
efficient at filtering intelligence for their specific
requirements.
However, some extra ground rules may be
required by organizations. The Data Protection
Act and its underlying principles form a reasonable framework for most firms. However, many
organizations will not have experience of combining informal and formal intelligence into existing
systems. It would be interesting to identify how
organizations cope with this mix of data, information, knowledge, and intelligence. What strategies
might organizations employ to store and analyze
informal intelligence? Are there any lessons to be
learned from the research that has been undertaken
in the area of knowledge management? There will
be an inordinate amount of pressure on system
designers to provide organizations with tailored,
rather than generic, formats so that they can realize
the potential from the business intelligence they
have been gathering. Will organizations be able
to find the data, information, or intelligence that
may be locked away in their current systems and
configurations?
Business Intelligence
It would be interesting to undertake a longitudinal study focusing on the staff members that are
given the responsibility to process the BI used by
the firm. It would also be important to make the
link with the decision-making process. Ideally, it
might be possible to make a direct link between
better intelligence, better decision-making, and
increased profitability. Finally, it would be interesting to analyse the potential sustainability of these
systems in changing business environments.
rEFErEncEs
AccuraCast. (2004). Business intelligence for
supply chain management. Retrieved December
29, 2006, from http://www.accuracast.com/bisupply-chain-management.shtml
Alshawi, S., Missi, F., & Eldabi, T. (2003). Healthcare information management: The integration
of patients data. Logistics Information Management, 16(3/4), 286-295.
Alter, S. (2002). Information systems: A management perspective (2nd ed.). The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc.
EIU. (2005, June). Know-how: Managing knowledge for competitive advantage. The Economist
Intelligence Unit. The Economist.
ESRI Solutions (2005). GIS for retail and commerical business. Retrieved from hppt://www.esri.
com/industries/business/business/business_intelligence.html
Business Intelligence
Green, C., & Dhillon, G. (2003). Business intelligence shifts to a central role. Retrieved
December 29, 2006, from http://www.vnunet.
com/print/it/1141314
Hall, H. (2000). Online information sources: Tools
of business intelligence? Journal of Information
Science, 26(3), 139-143.
Hall, J. (2004). Business intelligence: The missing
link in your CRM strategy. Retrieved December
29, 2006, from http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleId=1003997
Hanrahan, M. (2004). A DCR data quality resource. The essential ingredient: How business
intelligence depends on data quality. Retrieved
December 29, 2006, from http://www.dmreview.
com/portals/portal.cfm?topicId=230005
Jelecos Systems. (2005). Business intelligence.
Retrieved December 29, 2006, from http://www.
jelecos.com/business_intelligence.asp
Johnson, G., & Scholes, K. (2002). Exploring corporate strategy: Text and cases (6th ed.). London:
Prentice Hall.
Jones, R. M., & Towill, D.R. (1997). Information
enrichment: Designing the supply chain for competitive advantage. Supply Chain Management,
2(4), 137-148.
Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2000). Management information systems: Organization and
technology in the networked enterprise (6th ed.).
Prentice Hall.
Lewis, W. J. (2001). Data warehousing and ecommerce. Prentice Hall.
Licker, P. S. (1997). Management information
systems: A strategic leadership approach. The
Dryden Press, Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Maguire, S., & Robson, I. (2005, April). Intelligence management: The role of environmental
Business Intelligence
Turban, E., Lee, J., & Viehland, D. (2004). Electronic commerce; A managerial perspective
(International ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall.
White, C. (2004). Building the smart business: Inline real-time BI. Retrieved December 29, 2006,
from http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.
cfm?articleId=1014671
Tarpley, D. (2001). Minding the store: Retail business intelligence. Retrieved December 29, 2006,
from http://www.crm2day.com/library/EpuZVuluAEbHfppZHm.php
WWW.scip.org
Business Intelligence
Section II
Strategic Intelligence
Framework and Practice
Chapter III
AbstrAct
This chapter discusses the nature of strategic intelligence and the challenges of systematically scanning and processing strategic information. It reveals that strategic intelligence practice concentrates
on competitive intelligence gathering, non-competitive related intelligence have not yet been systematically scanned and processed. Much of the intelligence is collected through informal and manual based
systems. Turning data into analyzed, meaningful intelligence for action is limited to a few industry leaders. The chapter proposed a corporate intelligence solution, which comprises of three key intelligence
functions, namely organizational-wide intelligence scanning, knowledge enriched intelligent refining,
and specialist support. A corporate radar system (CRS) for external environment scanning, which is a
part of the organizational-wide intelligence scanning process is explored in light of latest technology
development. Implementation issues are discussed. The chapter develops insight of strategic intelligence,
and the solution could significantly enhance a managers and a companys sensibility and capability in
dealing with external opportunities and threats.
IntroductIon
As the business environment becomes more turbulent and competition becomes fiercer, developing
foresight about future opportunities and threats,
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
dEFInItIons oF strAtEgIc
IntEllIgEncE
The term of strategic intelligence is often used
interchangeably with other terms: data, information, intelligence, and knowledge. There seems to
be no generally agreed definitions towards these
terms, but they are different in the context of this
chapter as follows:
Data is the raw material of organizational
life; it consists of disconnected numbers, words,
symbols relating to the events, and processes of
a business. Data on its own can serve little useful purpose.
Information comes from data that has been
processed to make it useful in management decision-making. Intelligence in most cases is referred
to competitors information (CI), or competitive
intelligence or the totality of external information (Baatz, 1994). Competitor intelligence has
often been regarded as a process of collecting
and processing competitors information following a CI cycle, which includes identifying
the strategic needs of a business, systematically
collecting relevant information on competitors,
and processing the data into actionable knowledge
about competitors strategic capabilities, position, performance, and intentions. However, the
boundary of competitors intelligence has always
been extended to include not only competitors
information, but also market and environment
information for strategic decision. For example,
Tyson (1990) defines competitor intelligence as an
analytical process that transforms raw data into
relevant, accurate, and usable strategic knowledge,
more specifically, it includes:
Information about a competitors current
position, historical performance, capabilities, and intentions.
Baatz (1994) refer the term corporate intelligence to the collection and analysis of information on markets, technologies, customers
and competitors, as well as socio-economic and
external political trends. Another term, business
intelligence (BI) has been prevalent in the IT industry. Business intelligence is a process that its
input is raw data; the data then is evaluated for
usefulness to a relevant and reasonably reliable
body of information; the analyzed, digested, and
interpreted information thus becomes intelligence.
The term strategic intelligence used in this
chapter means strategically significant information to senior managers that is scanned, analyzed,
digested, and is meaningful that could affects
senior managers beliefs, commitments, and actions. The entire process of turning original data
from both external and internal environment into
intelligence is referred to intelligence activity.
Data, information and intelligence are closely
linked to knowledge. Knowledge refers to totality
of information related to policy, problem or issue
whether it is quantitative or qualitative, data or
opinions, judgements, news or concepts. According to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), knowledge
is justified true belief; it is a dynamic human
process of justifying personal belief towards the
true. Information provides a new point of view
for interpreting events or objects, which makes
visible previously invisible meanings or shed light
on unexpected connections. Thus, information
is a necessary medium or material for eliciting
and constructing knowledge. Information affects
knowledge by adding something to it or restructuring it. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) further
0
EMpIrIcAl studIEs on
coMpEtItIvE IntEllIgEncE
In prActIcE
Many empirical studies related to strategic intelligence concentrate on competitive intelligence.
Wright, et al (2002) conducted a study to examine
how UK companies conduct competitive intelligence through questionnaire and interviews.
The study examined the attitude of gathering
competitive intelligence, strategies for intelligence
gathering, use of intelligence and organizational
locations of the intelligence function. Two types
of intelligence gathering are identified: (a) easy
gatheringfirms use general publications and
or specific industry periodicals and consider
these constitute exhaustive information, and (b)
hunter gatheringin additional to easy gathering, companies conduct own primary research on
competitors. CI function within an organization
are either in ad-hoc locationno dedicated CI
unit within the organizational structure, and intelligence activities are undertook on ad hoc basis,
typically, by the marketing or sales department,
25 ~ 30 competitors
Financial performance,
specific competitive
activities.
10 competitors
All aspect of
competitor activity
Market information
Competitors and
Competitive products
Environment
About 10 competitors
Competitors strategic
intention, 90% ~95%
external information
Case 1
A large financial
institution
Case 2
A distribution
company
Case 3
An engineering
company
Case 4
A chemicals
company
Case 5
An automotive
company
Competitors monitored
/ Kind of Information
News-type databases
covering the industry,
company reports, press
releases, promotional
materials, trade show
Newspapers, journals,
on-line databases
(e.g., Dialog) business
associations, FT Business
Resource Centre
Imp/exp. statistics,
products literature
Published information,
Trade journals, statutory
company accounts,
customers, employees.
Information
sources used
Manual-oriented system
in Business Planning
Department
Computer-based system
in Business information
unit
Manual-based system
by the Marketing
Intelligence Manager and
one assistant
Personnel in the
Research Department
(manual-based)
CI Systems
No computerized database,
Data stored in filing cabinet.
Data analysis
Output / dissemination
100 subsidiaries. In the UK the operating companies are divided by product and includes Beta
General Insurance UK Ltd., Beta Life Insurance
UK Ltd., Beta Insurance International Ltd., Beta
Investment Ltd. The Group Holding Company
comprises of several functional departments for
example, Legal & Secretarial, Financial Control
& Planning, Corporate Relations, International
Division, and Strategic Research. The data were
collected through action research by the author
who participated in a CRM Client Relationship
Management project in one of the operating
companies. The Information Manager of the
Group Holdings Company revealed the groups
information searching systems for strategic intelligence. Table 2 presents the intelligence searching
systems used by the group companies.
The major sources used to scan intelligence
include:
Bata Insurance Group Plc1 is a worldwide insurance group operating in many countries with over
Use the city Business Library and the British Library Business Reference for research
projects, and directories and handbooks such
Comparison of main UK competitors from financial results, share price tracking, and press
releases
Financial analysis of reinsurance companies from company reports and accounts
Monitoring UK composite insurers from city analysts reports and a press cutting service
Press cuttings
Use of published surveys
Market research association (external)
AM Bests on CD ROM
On-line news information services
Competitors financial data
Soft information database
dIscussIon
The empirical evidence suggests that external
intelligenceprimarily competitive intelligence
and market/industry intelligence as reviewed
above, has been addressed by many companies
engaged in CI activities. A manager from Bata
Group comments that In todays rapidly changing
business world the need for timely and accurate
market intelligence will increase. We need to know
what our competitors are doing almost before they
do. The sources used for intelligence gathering
are heterogeneous, but most intelligence tends to
be gathered from public domain. Managers intelligence needs are often fulfilled by using a broad
range of approaches, which are characterized as
manual-based and unsystematic tendencies. The
thE solutIons
organization-Wide Intelligence
scanning
The way to avoid ad hoc intelligence scanning
is to have systematic and organization-wide
scanning systems. It is believed that systematic
scanning of business environment for strategic
information can improve the completeness and
quality of strategic intelligence. Huber (1990) assert that the use of computer-assisted information
processing and communication technologies will
lead to more rapid and more accurate identification of problems and opportunities; and the use
of computer-assisted information storage and acquisition technologies will lead to organizational
intelligence that is more accurate, comprehensive,
timely, and available. Environmental scanning:
as defined by Maier, Rainer, and Snyder (1997)
is a basic process of any organization, acquires
data from the external environment to be used
in problem definition and decision-making. The
environment consists of all those events, happenings, or factors with a present or future influence
on the organization that, at the same time, lies
outside the organizations immediate control. The
primary purpose of environment scanning is to
provide a comprehensive view or understanding of
the current and future condition of the five environmental constituents: social, economic, political
regulatory, and technological. Scanning invokes
a process of externalization, causing the company to expand the focus of decision-making to
include the perspectives of outsiders, for example,
present and prospective competitors, customers,
regulators, stakeholders, and the perspectives of
economic condition, political climate, technology
development, social and cultural changes. An
information scanning mechanism could ensure
systematically collection of relevant, important
information from various sources available both
inside and outside a company.
The current practice of intelligence gathering
significantly relies on managers and sales forces.
This runs the risk of missing significant intelligence being noticed due to time constraints and
limited capabilities of individual managers, and
the narrow focus of sales and marketing staff.
To maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of
environmental scanning, organization-wide intelligence scanning is desirable and possible. Because
organization members have wide contacts with a
variety of external entities, also they work closely
in the front-line to interface with companys
customers, hence, a variety of intelligence can
be gathered for the attention of senior managers.
Organization-wide intelligence scanning should
focus on scanning external environment for intelligence. The scanning function can be performed
through formal, informal intelligence collecting/
reporting systems or third party agency, which
are suggested as below:
High
Social /culture
probe
Alert
Technology
Economi
radar scanning
Regulation
sensors
Level of strategic
impact of signal
i
Customer
Market / industry
Supplier
Competitor
discard
Filter
Low
Weak
Clarity of Signal
An alert: If the signal detected is strategically important, and the signal is with strong
clarity, that is, message is clearly stated and
from reliable sources, the signal will be
alerted immediately as hot intelligence to
executives.
A filter: If many signals being detected but
not all of them are of strategic importance,
for example, information regularly received
by the company from its environment, the
signals have to be selected from a potentially large mass of data, and filtered for
relevance. Because most of the signals are
less important to derive strategic information, the filter function thus is vital to screen
out irrelevant information and to eliminate
information overload.
A probe: The radar system may detect a weak
signal but it may have potential strategic
impact on the organization, the signal thus
must be probed and amplified. Information
Strong
external consultants have helped to equip organization with the knowledge and skills for doing
environmental scanning on the Internet. These
services include conducting courses on the use of
Internet tools and compiling links to potentially
useful information sources.
Organization-wide intelligence scanning is
envisaged to enhance external intelligence scanning. However, systematically scanning the entire
environment is both costly and inappropriate. A
manager is interested in the environment that
influences his decisions, hence, environmental
scanning needs to be selective, yet ensure that
sufficient variety is maintained to avoid missing
important signals. Auster and Choo (1995) suggest
that selecting which environment for scanning
is effected by a variety of influential factors, for
example, the turbulence of the environment, the
difference of industry sectors, or the companys
competition strategy. It can be argued from this
study that for effective organization-wide intelligence scanning, making knowledge about which
environment to scan explicit is vital.
knowledge-Enriched Intelligence
Filtering and Refining
In order to produce analytical intelligence productmeaningful and digestible information, it
is vital to filter out irrelevant data and to refine
S c anning
Strategic Vision
Knowledge
Internal
F iltering
Analys ing
Interpreting
R eporting
E xtrac ting
Knowledge
Tacit - Explicit
0
knowledge Workers/Intelligence
specialist support
Although computer-based intelligence system
(scanning, refining) may be developed, it is evident
that many senior managers may not wish to use
such systems to acquire strategic intelligence due
to the nature of managerial work. The advanced
systems may be better used by intelligence specialists/knowledge workers, so that analyzed
intelligence can be delivered to the senior managers by the specialists. If managers information
requirements can be predefined, the specialist
will search necessary databases and the external
environment to locate the information as required.
If however, managers do not solicit information,
the intelligence specialist can continually scan
the external environment and proactively report
significant intelligence (most of them probably are
unexpected) to the senior managers via written or
verbal communication channels. Less important
information is consolidated, synthesized, and
digested to a brief level that managers receive
on regular basis. With the support of intelligence
specialists, both internal and external data can be
systematically scanned, filtered, synthesized, and
reported in both regular and ad hoc basis through
formal and informal systems.
The challenge however is that intelligence
specialists need to possess managerial knowledge and similar judgement that managers use
to acquire information. This relies on knowledge
sharing. In addition, intelligence specialists need
to have rich knowledge of information sources and
skills in exploiting, evaluating, and interpreting
information.
IMplEMEntAtIon
Implementation of the above solution will inevitably require a change of vision, intelligence process,
organizational structure and culture. Managers
need to develop a strategic vision in order to give
a companys intelligence activity a sense of direction. The purpose is to give corporate members a
mental map of the world they live in and to provide
a general direction as to what kind of intelligence
they ought to seek and report. A strategic vision
created by senior management helps foster a high
degree of personal commitment from middle
managers and front-line workers.
A common problem in establishing intelligence
functions might be that most companies prefer
not to devote resources to such a function until
it can prove that the function is necessary and
will succeed. Therefore, a visionary leadership is
needed, who can perceive the benefits of strategic
intelligence and provides support for developing
the intelligence function.
What remains critical is how managerial
knowledge can be elicited to underpin the radar
scanning system, and the refining system. The
knowledge spiral model (Nonaka & Takeuchi
1995)sharing knowledge through socialization
could facilitate the process of sharing experiences
and turning tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge, for example, in the form of an intelligence
gathering event, briefing, club, online discussion
forum.
There is probably no one structure that can fit
a variety of different organizations. The variety
very much depends on the size of the firm, the
type of the business, the degree of centralization
or decentralization of its activities and decisionmaking. It is perfectly possible that a centralized
intelligence function is established to coordinate
organizational-wide intelligence activities and
to operate the corporate radar system. This can
overcome the data integrity problem that often
resulted from functionally divided organizational
CI processes.
In accordance with structural change, a knowledge creating and intelligence gathering culture
need to be created. Organization-wide intelligence
gathering relies on every members commitment
to intelligence activity. Environmental scanning
is an essential behavior attribute of culture because scanning provides the first step in a chain
that culminates in organizational actions (Saxby,
2002). The briefing on intelligence gathering,
incentives, the informal networks form an intelligence culture. Senior managers must continually
reinforce the desired culture traits through their
own behavior.
conclusIon
This chapter reviewed the nature of strategic
intelligence and highlighted the challenges of
systematically managing strategic intelligence.
Strategic intelligence is not a static piece of
information that can be easily obtained. What
constitutes strategic intelligence is subject to
managerial judgement and sense making that
requires managerial knowledge. The current
process of intelligence activity is either divided
by organizational function, or is ad hoc relying
on individual manager. Intelligence gather is primarily concentrated on competitive intelligence.
Computerized system has played limited role in
intelligence scanning and analysis. There is a lack
of systematic intelligence scanning, analyzing
and intelligence support, and culture.
The solution proposed to improve strategic
intelligence activity addresses three significant
intelligence functions that constitute a systematic
intelligence process. The organization-wide scanning and the corporate radar system will ensure
continuous monitoring and scanning of all signals
from the market, competitors, and customers,
and the far environment. The refining function
is enriched with managerial knowledge so as
to filter out irrelevant information and ensure
meaningful intelligence is reached executives.
rEFErEncEs
Aguilar, F. (1967). Scanning the business environment. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Auster, E., & Choo, C. (1994). How senior managers acquire and use information in environment
scanning. Information Processing & Management, 30(5), 607-618.
Baatz, E. (1994, September). The quest for corporate smarts. CIO, pp. 48-51.
Bernhardt, D. (1994). I want it fast, factual, actionable: Tailoring competitive intelligence to
executives needs. Long Range Planning, 27(1),
12-24.
Brittin, M. (1991). Business research guide: How
to develop your competitor intelligence system:
Five case studies. Cleveland, UK: Headland
Press.
Sugasawa, Y. (2004). The current state of competitive intelligence activities and competitive awareness in Japanese business. Journal of competitive
intelligence and management, 2(4), 7-31.
EndnotE
1
Chapter IV
A Strategic Marketing
Intelligence Framework
Reinforced by
Corporate Intelligence
Peter Trim
University of London, UK
Yang-Im Lee
University of London, UK
AbstrAct
The chapter examines how marketing strategists and corporate intelligence officers can work together
in order to provide a high level, pro-active strategic intelligence operation that enhances marketing
strategy development and implementation. A variety of activities relating to marketing strategy, corporate intelligence and corporate security are highlighted. Aspects of corporate counterintelligence are
addressed in the context of gathering intelligence, and guidance is provided as to how organizational
strategists can develop a strategic marketing intelligence framework that incorporates a counterintelligence dimension. The main advantage of the strategic marketing intelligence framework is that it acts
as a vehicle to integrate the organizational intelligence efforts and activities at the highest-level. It also
facilitates the creation of an intelligence culture.
IntroductIon
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
information. This being the case, senior managers based in competing organizations will need
to work on measures to counteract industrial
espionage that is being undertaken by various
front companies and individuals. As regards
threats from within the organization, a survey
undertaken by PriceWaterhouseCooper (De Vita,
2006), reported that 55% of organizations that
participated in a survey in the U.K. reported that
they had suffered from economic crime within
the past two years. It can also be reported that
employees defrauded about half of the organizations surveyed (De Vita, 2006).
A crItIcAl rEvIEW oF A
corporAtE IntEllIgEncE
systEM
Hussey and Jenster (1999, p. 109) suggest that:
There is often confusion about what benchmarking
really is, and some consider that they are benchmarking when they compare performance ratios.
Although it is an important first step to use such
ratios when they can be obtained, benchmarking
is about understating the process through which
someone else is achieving performance which
is better than yours, and comparing them with
your own.
From this quotation, it can be deduced that
the benchmarking approach has a number of
benefits associated with it. It can focus senior
managements attention on a range of issues
relating to speed to market and improving the
organizations structure (Pepper, 2001). It is important to note that the benchmarking approach
will be successful, provided that all the criteria
necessary is available and is used in a logical
and defined manner. This means that realistic
comparisons are made that are based on accurate
data and information.
A strAtEgIc MArkEtIng
IntEllIgEncE FrAMEWork
By incorporating corporate intelligence into the
strategic marketing effort, it should be possible
for marketing intelligence officers and marketing
strategists to develop an appropriate architecture for synthesising the marketing intelligence
planning process. Breeding (2001) provided the
evidence of this and suggests that business intelligence incorporates competitor intelligence, customer/prospect intelligence, market intelligence,
technical intelligence, and partner intelligence.
Top management can appoint a Corporate
Intelligence Steering Committee to oversee,
advise and regulate the work of the corporate
intelligence function and an Executive Intelligence
Alliance Policy Strategy Monitoring Group can
be established to monitor the work of the corporate intelligence function (Trim, 2001b). Staff
employed in the corporate intelligence function
can be given a broad remit. Their main task should
be to devise strategies that counteract the movement of competitors. Corporate intelligence staff
also work with corporate security staff in order
to provide counter measures to stop fraudsters
and other individuals that are out to do damage
to the company. Corporate intelligence staff can
also provide advice and support to company
employees that are engaged in strategic alliance
activities and can reinforce the marketing effort
by providing support that ultimately leads to
the development of new products and processes
(Trim, 2001b).
An appropriate way in which to develop a
strategic marketing intelligence focus is to put
in place a strategic marketing intelligence framework. The framework provides a mechanism for
integrating intelligence activities and exchanging
knowledge. The framework also incorporates a
counterintelligence activity, which is a necessary element of corporate intelligence. Figure 1
depicts the components of a strategic marketing
intelligence framework.
0
Head of Corporate
Security
Marketing
Intelligence
Head of Information
Systems and
Technology
Marketing Research
Corporate Legal
Department
External Business
B usiness
Intelligence Agency
External Market
Research Agency
Trade
Associations
Chambers of
Commerce and
Industry
Government
Departments and
Law Enforcement
Agencies
conclusIon
The strategic marketing intelligence framework
outlined in this chapter will allow marketing
intelligence officers, marketing strategists, corporate intelligence officers, and corporate security
officers, to work closely with staff throughout
the organization and provide useful and timely
intelligence relating to customer perceptions, the
current and future actions of competitors, and
relevant information about the activities of consumer groups and associations. This will ensure
that data and information are supplied to global
product teams and individual brand managers,
and will result in realistic global brand positioning
strategies being devised and implemented.
By monitoring the actions of counterfeiters,
fraudsters, computer hackers and crackers, and
various activists, those involved in marketing,
intelligence and security work, can devise effective counterintelligence measures that thwart the
actions of those who are out to cause damage to
the organization. They can also liaise with law
enforcement officers and make their findings
known to a wider audience via trade associations
and government departments.
Marketing intelligence officers and marketing
strategists will in the years ahead be required to
identify potential organizational vulnerabilities
and future strategic alliance opportunities. This
means that the strategic marketing approach needs
to be fully embraced and an intelligence culture
needs to permeate throughout the organization.
Should this be the case, a multifunctional approach
to strategy development and implementation will
be adopted and the functionally divided intelligence process approach, which is known for the
stovepipe mentality, will be eradicated.
rEFErEncEs
Aaker, D. A. (1984). Strategic market management. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
Sheffi, Y. (2005). The resilient enterprise: Overcoming vulnerability for competitive advantage.
Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Tan, T. T. W., & Ahmed, Z. U. (1999). Managing
market intelligence: An Asian marketing research
perspective. Marketing Intelligence & Planning,
17(6), 298-306.
Trim, P. R. J. (2000). Corporate intelligence and
security management: Two sides of the same
coin. Journal of European Business Education,
9(2), 1-14.
Trim, P. R. J. (2001a). Public-private partnerships
in the defence industry and the extended corporate
intelligence and national security model. Strategic
Change, 10(1), 49-58.
Trim, P .R. J. (2001b). A framework for establishing and implementing corporate intelligence.
Strategic Change, 10(6), 349-357.
Lee, Y.-I. (2004). Customer service and organizational learning in the context of strategic
marketing. Marketing Intelligence & Planning,
22(6), 652-662.
Chapter V
AbstrAct
This chapter examines the theoretical underpinning for supporting executive intelligence activities
and reviews conventional studies of executive information systems (EIS) over the last two decades in
responding to the current executives information processing needs and the current Internet era. The
reviews suggest the need for designing advanced EIS that are capable of responding and adapting
to executive information. This chapter recognizes the necessity of revitalizing EIS with advances in
intelligent technologies and Web-based technologies. Empirical studies were conducted to elucidate
executives desires and perceptions of the prospect of agent-based technologies for supporting executive
intelligence activities in the more integrated and distributed environment of the Internet. Based on the
insights gained from empirical studies, this chapter concludes by presenting a three-level agent-based
EIS design model that comprises a usability-adaptability-intelligence trichotomy for supporting
executive intelligence activities.
IntroductIon
It is widely recognized that there is an increasing
complexity and dynamism of operational and
strategic information in electronic and distributed environments. Executives are now seeking
assistance for continuous, self-reactive and selfadaptive approaches to acquiring, synthesizing,
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
0
thEorEtIcAl undErpInnIng oF
EIs dEvElopMEnt
As the business environment becomes more volatile and competitive the appropriate handling of
information and knowledge has become a distinct
core competence. The capability to know itself,
know its enemies, and know its business environment significantly affects a companys success
or failure. The challenge is that organizations and
their environments are systems that continually
present a variety of disturbances through signals
and messages that senior executives should attend to (Auster & Choo, 1994; Daft, Sormunen,
& Parks, 1988). As a result, senior executives
are facing increasing complexity and variety in
operational and strategic issues.
From the notion of cybernetics, Ashby (1956)
formulated the law of requisite variety that has
contributed significantly in management and
organizational studies. The variety of a system is
defined as the number of possible states it is capable
of exhibiting. It is a measure of complexity but
a subjective concept depending on the observer.
ExEcutIvE IntEllIgEncE
procEss And ActIvItIEs
As senior executives need to respond to their
changing and unpredictable environment continuously that can help or support executives in the
following three aspects of intelligence processing. First, advanced EIS are needed to reduce
the amount of information from the environment
and capture only relevant information, secondly,
to capture and process information according to
individual executives specific needs and interests,
Information from
the business
environment
AcQuIsItIon
searching
scanning
synthEsIs
Filtering
refining
IntErprEtAtIon
Explanation
Meaning-making
utilisation
Although software agents and their applications are still in the early stage of development,
they will advance increasingly as research
and development in software agents have been
mushrooming across different fields, such as
intelligent information gathering and process-
EMpIrIcAl studIEs
Software agents offer the potential to support
information processing intelligently but executive criteria for agent-based EIS support must be
made known in order to develop a system that is
considered useful by executives. Executive criteria
refer to critical requirements for an agent-based
support systems based on executives desires and
perceptions in judging the usefulness of the agents
functions or attributes. The authors conducted
empirical studies in order to identify executive
criteria for an agent-based EIS to support executive intelligence activities. First, four focus groups
were conducted to explore and reveal the current
state of executives information environment and
information processing behaviour in the light of
Internet era, from which to examine the validity of
the conventional views of EIS purpose, functions,
and design guidelines. Initial executive criteria
for agent-based EIS design were also identified
in the focus group study. Second, 25 senior executives were interviewed for deeper insights on
value-added attributes and processes of executive
criteria for building agent-based EIS. Value-added
attributes are functional requirements needed for
an agent-based system to assist the executive in
information processing activities. Value-added
processes are specific activities performed by
agent-based system that add value (i.e., enhance)
to the executive intelligence activities.
All the discussions were recorded and transcribed verbatim for later analysis. The categorization of meaning approach was adopted for
qualitative analysis, in which raw data were
organized into structured, meaningful themes according to predefined or newly emerging themes
and categories (Dey, 1993). With the high volume
of raw data obtained from all the transcripts,
qualitative analysis software, NVivo was selected
Information
Acquisition
process
level 1
Information
synthesis
process
Information
Interpretation
process
Personalisation
Controllability
usability
Ease of use
Manageability
level 2
Coaching
Learning
Adaptability
Semantic
support
Contextual
support
level 3
Reactivity
Autonomy
Intelligence
Proactivity
Manipulation
Distributed
information sources
Executive-Agent
Interaction &
Learning Mechanism
Manipulation
Information Interpretation
Information attributes
Adaptability
Information Acquisition
Intelligence
Information sources
0
Needs of information
Use of information
Information Synthesis
Specific Executive
Information Domain
Software Agents
Specific Executive
Profiles
rEFErEncEs
conclusIon
Agor, W. (1984). Intuitive management: Integrating left and right brain management skills.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Aguilar, F. J. (1967). Scanning the business environment. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Ashby, W. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics. London: Methuen.
Auster, E., & Choo, C. (1994). How senior managers acquire and use information in environment
scanning. Information Processing & Management, 30(5), 607-618.
Averweg, U., Erwin, G., & Petkov, D. (2005,
March). Survey of executive information systems
in well established organizations in Kwa-Zulu
Natal. South African Journal of Information
Management, 7(1).
Balabanovic, M., & Shoham, Y. (1997). Contentbased, collaborative recommendation. Communications of the ACM, 40(3), 66-72.
Dey, I. (1993). Qualitative data analysis: A userfriendly guide for social scientists. London:
Routledge.
Millet, I., & Mawhinney, C. H. (1992). Executive information systems: A critical perspective.
Information & Management, 23(2), 83-92.
Chapter VI
Managing Executive
Information Systems for
Strategic Intelligence in
South Africa and Spain
Udo Richard Averweg
eThekwini Municipality and University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Jos L. Roldn
University of Seville, Spain
AbstrAct
Strategically important information for executive decision-making is often not readily available since
it may be scattered in an organizations internal and external environments. An executive information
system (EIS) is a computer-based technology designed in response to specific needs of executives and
for decision-making. Executives having the right information for strategic decision-making is considered critical for strategic intelligence (SQ). SQ is the ability to interpret cues and develop appropriate strategies for addressing the future impact of these cues. In order to gauge the current situation in
respect of information in an EIS and for managing future EIS development, the authors research EIS in
organizations in two selected countries: South Africa and Spain. From their EIS study, parallelisms and
differences are identified and implications for SQ are discussed. Some practical implications for future
EIS development are given. The authors suggest these should be considered so that SQ for executive
decision-making is facilitated.
IntroductIon
The focus of this chapter is twofold: (1) to discuss
executive information systems (EIS) for strategic
intelligence (SQ); and (2) to present EIS research
from studies in South Africa and Spain and to discuss the SQ implications thereof when considering
future EIS development in these countries.
This chapter is organized as follows: The
concepts of strategic information and executive
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
information systems (EIS) introduced. Executives having the right information for strategic
decision-making is considered critical for SQ. A
survey of EIS in organizations in South Africa
and Spain is undertaken to identify the nature and
sources of information included in these surveyed
organizations EIS. The implications of this information for SQ for executive decision-making is
then discussed. Some future EIS trends are noted
and a conclusion is given.
Organizations use a wide range of technologies
and products to help users make better business
decisions. Strategic decision-making is often the
result of collaborative processes. Strategically important information for executive management decision-making is often not readily available since
it may be scattered in an organizations internal
and external environments. Strategic information
systems (IS) provide or help to provide, strategic
advantage to an organization (Turban, McLean &
Wetherbe, 2004). An increasing number of organizations are recognising the strategic significance
of their information technology (IT) resources
(Maier, Rainer, & Snyder, 1997).
An EIS is a computer-based technology designed in response to the specific needs of executives and for making both strategic and tactical
decisions. An EIS is used by executives to extract,
filter, compress, and track critical data and to
allow seamless access to complex multidimensional models so that they can see their business
at a glance. This facilitates executives making
strategic and tactical decisions thereby leading
to strategic excellence for their organizations.
EIS have been successfully implemented in many
organizations and in many countries.
SQ is defined as the ability to interpret cues
and develop appropriate strategies for addressing the future impact of these cues (Service,
2006, p. 61). SQ systems are IS designed to
provide information about competitors and the
competitive market environment which can be
helpful in making strategic management decisions (Mockler, 1992). The notion of SQ leads to
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
on the right things, leads to developing a better SQ for executives; executives become better
strategists and thereby provide strategic advantage
to their organization. Most EIS facilitate search
and scanning behaviors for executives.
In the next section, the background to strategic information (including strategic information
systems) and executive information systems (EIS)
are introduced. Thereafter EIS development, some
EIS issues, Web-based systems and the right
information are discussed.
bAckground to strAtEgIc
InForMAtIon And ExEcutIvE
InForMAtIon systEMs
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
0
EIS may include analysis support, communications, office automation, and intelligent support
(Turban, Rainer & Potter, 2005). From this data,
executives are able to glean cues which may be
used towards achieving SQ in an organization.
It is therefore important that EIS are developed
to facilitate information cues for executives. EIS
development is now discussed.
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
EIs development
Decision-making is recognized as one of the
most important roles of executives. Executives
are facing a business environment characterised
by escalating complexity and turbulence. Given
this environment, there is a need to have a clear
understanding of the terms complexity and
turbulence when developing EIS. These two
terms are now discussed.
From the above, it is evident that EIS development is a complex task which requires a large
investment of time and money.
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
Web-based systems
With the emergence of global IT, existing paradigms are being altered which are spawning new
considerations for successful IT development.
Web-based technologies are causing a revisit to
existing IT development models, including EIS.
The Web is a perfect medium for deploying
decision support and EIS capabilities on a global
basis (Turban et al., 1999). Organizational success in accomplishing strategies is a function of
how one arranges, develops, changes or uses an
organizations systems. These systems, for SQ,
should extend beyond automated MIS, IS and
IT to include all (including Web-based) organizationally related systems. This is evident from
the business environment since the relevant
physical and social factors outside the boundary
of an organization that are taken into consideration
during organizational decision-making (Daft,
Sormunen, & Parks, 1988).
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
This is useful as any information shortcomings identifies which do not facilitate SQ for
executives can then be meaningfully addressed in
future EIS development. The research methodologies adopted in these EIS survey studies in South
Africa and Spain studies are now discussed.
research Methodology in
south African EIs survey
A survey questionnaire was developed based on
previous instruments used in published research
Year
Investigation
Country
Replies (n)
1991
United
States of
America
Fitzgerald, G.
1992
United
Kingdom
77 questionnaires received, 36 of
whom are proceeding with an EIS
1992
United
States of
America
Steer, I.J.
1995
South
Africa
Thodenius, B.
1995
Sweden
Watson, H.J.,
Watson, T., Singh,
S., & Holmes, D.
1995
United
States of
America
43 suitable questionnaires
from organizations with EIS
implementation
Allison, I.K.
1996
United
Kingdom
1997
Korea and
United
States of
America
27 suitable questionnaires
from organizations with EIS
implementation
1997
Australia
12 suitable questionnaires
from organizations with EIS
implementation
2001
Hong
Kong,
China
6 suitable questionnaires
from organizations with EIS
implementation
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
Spain (N=69)
6 (19.5%)
12 (17.4%)
5 (16.1%)
9 (13.0%)
9 (29.0%)
28 (40,6%)
5 (16.1%)
12 (17.4%)
5 (16.1%)
6 (8.7%)
1 (3.2%)
2 (2.9%)
Table 3. Rank descending applications for which EIS is used: Frequency and percentage (multiple
answer question)
South Africa (N=31)
23 (74.2%)
22 (71.0%)
16 (51.6%)
16 (51.6%)
5 (16,1%)
1 (3.2%)
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
(OReilly, 1982). It has been shown that accessibility of information has a significant influence
on perceived usefulness and perceived easy of
use of EIS (Pijpers, Bemelmans, Heemstra, &
van Montfort, 2001). Furthermore, Roldn and
Leal (2003b) report that EIS service quality has
a greater effect on EIS user satisfaction than EIS
information quality. Therefore, access to updated
online information is a basic characteristic of EIS
(Houdeshel & Watson, 1987; Martin, Brown,
DeHayes, Hoffer, & Perkins, 1999).
The different types of information included in
an EIS in an organization is given in Table 4. From
Table 4, for organizations surveyed in South Africa, financial information (90.3%) appears as the
most important item followed by business/commercial sales (74.2%) and then strategic planning
(35.5%). In the Roldn and Leal (2003a) study,
the three highest ranking types of information
held by an EIS in an organization are business/
commercial sales information (82.9%), financial
information (65.7%) and production information
(55.7%). While previous research studies agree in
presenting these three types of information (sales,
financial, and production) as the most relevant ones
(Allison, 1996; Kirlidog, 1997; Thodenius, 1995),
the Averweg (2002) study partially support these
Table 4. Types of information included in EIS: Frequency and percentage (multiple answer question)
South Africa (N=31)
Spain (N=70)
Finance
28 (90.3%)
46 (65.7%)
Business/commercial sales
23 (74.2%)
58 (82.9%)
Strategic planning
11 (35.5%)
10 (14.3%)
Inventory management/suppliers
10 (32.3%)
14 (20.0%)
Human resources
9 (29.0%)
31 (44.3%)
Production
8 (25.8%)
39 (55.7%)
Quality
7 (22.6%)
22 (31.4%)
Soft information
4 (12.9%)
25 (35.7%)
Trade/industry
4 (12.9%)
14 (20.0%)
Competitors
3 (9.7%)
16 (22.9%)
1 (3.2%)
9 (12.9%)
1 (3.2%)
5 (7.1%)
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
Table 5. Types of soft information included in EIS: Frequency and percentage (multiple answer question)
Spain (N=25)
13 (52.0%)
12 (48.0%)
6 (24.0%)
5 (20.0%)
1 (4.0%)
0 (0.0%)
Other
3 (12.0%)
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
Executives often prefer doing this task personally instead of delegating it to staff since senior
managers find great value in filtering external
data through their own mental models (Rockart
& DeLong, 1988). Therefore they try to develop
and maintain its own external information sources,
which are frequently rich and personal media of
communication.
The literature suggests that periodical and
newspaper reviews are a frequently used source
of competitive intelligence. Considering the
hard/soft information continuum proposed by
Watson et al. (1996), in organizations surveyed
in Spain, Roldn, and Leal (2003a) observe those
types of qualitative information more quoted
are included in a halfway house between hard
and soft information: predictions (52.0%) and
explanations (48.0%) (Table 5). Roldn and Leal
(2003a) emphasise the absence of cases for the
soft information extreme of the continuum (i.e.,
How information is held by EIS in an organization is given in Table 6. From Table 6, information is generally presented by products (71.0%),
operational/functional areas (64.5%) and geographical areas (58.1%). Roldn and Leal (2003a)
report similar findings for operational/functional
areas (62.9%), products (61.4%) and geographic
areas (52.9%). Roldn and Leal (2003a) note that
information according to processes ranks quite
low, existing in only 20% of participating entities (p. 295). From Table 6 there is a striking
commonality with the Averweg (2002) study of
19.4%. This situation was highlighted by Wetherbe
(1991) as one of the traditional IS problems for top
managers that is these systems are considered as
functional systems rather than being considered
as systems crossing functions. Nevertheless, this
result is understandable since the most important
EIS user groups are top functional managers and
middle managers.
Table 6. How information is held by EIS in organizations: Frequency and percentage (multiple answer
question)
South Africa (N=31)
Spain (N=70)
By products
22 (71.0%)
43 (61.4%)
By operational/functional areas
20 (64.5%)
44 (62.9%)
By geographic areas
18 (58.1%)
37 (52.9%)
14 (45.2%)
33 (47.1%)
By company
11 (35.5%)
not available
10 (32.3%)
37 (52.9%)
By processes
6 (19.4%)
14 (20.0%)
By projects
5 (16.1%)
11 (15.7%)
By customers
1 (3.2%)
0 (0.0%)
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
Table 7. Sources of information that support EIS in organizations: Frequency and percentage (multiple
answer question)
South Africa (N=31)
00
Spain (N=70)
Corporate databases
25 (80.6%)
61 (87.1%)
Operational databases
20 (64.5%)
29 (41.4%)
Individuals
12 (38.7%)
23 (32.9%)
External databases
8 (25.8%)
19 (27.1%)
Documents or reports
7 (22.6%)
24 (34.3%)
5 (16.1%)
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
0
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
0
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
Most of the executive information requirements include demographic and marketing data
from public sources and soft information from
personal contacts. Palvia et al. (1996) indicate that
EIS can be used to provide the soft information.
Soft information that is provided in EIS can be
classified in groups according to their softness
(Watson et al., 1996). This classification helps
the executive user judge them.
In the next section, future EIS trends are
presented. Thereafter the conclusion for this
chapter is given.
0
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
chapter summary
In this chapter the concepts of strategic information, EIS and SQ were discussed. A survey of EIS
in organizations in South Africa and Spain was
undertaken to identify the nature and sources of
information included in the surveyed organizations EIS. The implications of this information
for SQ for executive decision-making was then
discussed. Some practical implications for future
EIS development were given. Future EIS trends
were then noted.
key Findings
Four key findings from this EIS research can be
summarized as follows:
conclusIon
The accessibility, navigation, and management
of strategic data and information for improved
executive decision-making is becoming critical in
the new global business environment. As decisionmaking is being facilitated from anywhere at any
time, future EIS development will be significantly
0
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
Management Implications
Web-based systems which began to emerge in
the mid-1990s, deliver business applications via
the Internet. Many of the innovative and strategic systems found nowadays in medium and
large organizations are Web-based. Using their
browsers, employees in organizations collaborate,
communicate and access vast amounts of information by means of Web-based systems. There is
therefore both scope and need for research in the
particular area of EIS being impacted by Webbased technologies. Executives need systems that
provide access to accommodation and assimilation
information so that they can interpret the cues
from this information and formulate strategies for
addressing the future impact of these cues.
EIS are becoming more enterprise-wide with
greater decision support capabilities and also gaining in intelligence through the use of intelligent
software agents. EIS are going through a major
change to take advantage of Web-based technologies in order to satisfy sense-making information
needs of an increasing group of executive users.
As these users need IS that provide access to
diverse types of strategic information which
may be scattered in both internal and external
environments, there is also a need for research
in the area of managing future EIS development
so that SQ for executive decision-making is in
manifested in these SIS.
rEFErEncEs
Allison, I. K. (1996). Executive information
systems: An evaluation of current UK practice.
International Journal of Information Management, 16(1), 27-38.
Ansoff, H. I., & McDonell, E. J. (1990). Implanting strategic management (2nd ed.). Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
0
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
0
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
0
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
systems - A study of Taiwans medium manufacturing. Computers & Education, 36(4), 317-332.
Taylor, B., Gray, A., & Graham, C. (1992). Information: The strategic essential. Accountancy
110(1191), 43-45.
0
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
0
Managing Executive Information Systems for Strategic Intelligence in South Africa and Spain
Section III
Enhancing Environment
Scanning and Intelligence
Practice: Techniques
0
Chapter VII
Understanding Key
Intelligence Needs (KINs)
Adeline du Toit
University of Johannesburg, South Africa
AbstrAct
This chapter explains how to translate an organizations strategic aims into key intelligence needs (KINs)
and how to prioritize and categorize the needs. It argues that an essential aspect for any competitive
intelligence (CI) professional is to gain the confidence of management to determine what information
about the environment should be collected in order to produce intelligence. Furthermore the author
hope that understanding how to determine a set of KINs as derived from an organizations vision, mission, and strategic objectives and how to break down KINs into general and specific KINs will assist
CI professionals to understand what their internal customers want to know about, need to know about
and should know about and why, when they need to know it, and who needs to know it by identifying
KINs. The application of KINs in a practical situation is illustrated in a case study of a South African
company in the furniture industry.
IntroductIon
In the knowledge economy, the survival of organizations depends on their ability to see the bigger
picture within their competitive environment, to
track and scan that environment continuously
in search of emerging threats and opportunities
and to react to such threats and opportunities
swiftly. To ensure focused information gather-
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
KINs should be translated into simple coherent questions that can be used to task others to
collect the required information.
The following are a few examples of KINs
(Evans, 2005):
Taskings are thus the translation of the information need into simple, clear and concise questions
that would yield answers. Taskings are compiled
by the CI professional and focus on those areas
where an information gap has been identified
or when information needs have to be assessed,
compared, or evaluated (Muller, 2002a).
information (taskings). Often, by consulting secondary sources, the intelligence database and the
Internet, the CI professional is able to answer a
KIN. Internal sources may also include (Muller,
2002b):
Marketers and sales persons (for information on distribution channels, pricing and
rebates, promotional material, and customer
comments on quality)
The company grapevine (personnel often
interact with the personnel of a competitor
at for example conferences, school events,
or other social gatherings)
Financial analysts (analysing the annual
results of a competitor)
Research and development (information on
latest technology trends)
Human resources (keeping track of recruitment drives)
Creating an analysis capability where products are delivered according to the KINs of the
organization will determine the success of the CI
function. It is important to recognize that each KIN
may require a different set of analytical models.
Suitable products should be identified and developed. These products need to be disseminated
to the clients in actionable format (Havenga &
Botha, 2003). Turning information into intelligence requires several analytical steps. First,
intelligence processing converts the information
into a form that is useful for analysis. Processing
might include validating data or writing summaries of key facts. Once CI professionals have
matched up the KINs to the appropriate analytical model, they can start collecting information
to feed the analysis. If CI staff start collecting
information before knowing which analytical
model to use, they tend to waste time collecting
the wrong types of information for the analysis
(Evans, 2005). Analysis then converts the raw data
and information into intelligence that answers
cAsE study
Just Wood is a well-established maker of indigenous wood furniture and has enjoyed over 30
years of business in South Africa. Just Wood
manufactures office furniture for the high-income
business market. Just Woods key competitor is
Office Mobile. For the last ten years, Just Wood
has undercut pricing for new furniture against
Office Mobile. Just Wood is known for its fast
manufacturing process of standard type designs.
This has enabled Just Wood to keep its prices
lower than those of Office Mobile. Just Wood
has a strong marketing focus regarding the South
African market and the local competitive environment. It has a countrywide dealer network and
each dealers financial statements are analyzed
on a regular basis. Just Woods customer base
includes government departments, corporate companies and embassies. Previously Just Wood, like
many other South African companies, was fairly
protected from the forces of global business, but
now it is suddenly part of a bigger, largely unprotected environment. A Danish company, Keplers,
is well known for very innovative and functional
office furniture. In January 2006, Keplers issued
a press release, indicating that it will market its
full range of products in South Africa.
Just Wood started CI operations in 1997, when
market research and other market information
were concentrated in one place, and on this basis
an information service was formed that since
2003 has been known as a CI unit. Just Wood
approaches its competitive position as part of an
open system comprising input, process, output,
and feedback within an environment. Its organizational structure can be described as a hybrid
intelligence system. Senior managements needs
are the overriding driving force in setting intelligence targets and intelligence methodologies for
the collection and analysis of information are fairly
consistent throughout the organization. Just Wood
requires accurate predictions of the future: what
products will be successful, what markets will
be attractive, what capabilities will be required?
The company chair manages the CI process and
a team of senior managers (product development
manager, marketing manager, financial manager)
conduct it. The CI unit consists of two workers;
one coordinating the market surveys and the other
working as an analyst, who gathers and combines
information and coordinates its accessibility.
CI plays a role in the companys growth
strategy and real-time information gathering
and analysis assist the company in making the
right decisions. Just Wood constantly nurtures
a culture of competitiveness and aims to ensure
that all employees know their CI roles and responsibilities. CI permeates the whole company
with participation and contribution from every
employee. Employees are regularly sensitized
to their CI role and function through monthly
meetings, where they are also provided with the
information needs requirements. The KINs of the
companys decision makers are known:
KINs are regularly communicated to employees that might be in a position to provide useful
information through monthly meetings with
sales employees and e-mails. Outcomes of the CI
process are integrated into strategy and business
planning. Just Wood has a strategic intelligence
process based on strategic business issues, integrated into a business plan through a process of
constant input and a regular update of the business plan, keeping pace with constantly changing
variables. Industry analysis is a cataloguing of the
market competitive structure: substitute products,
new entrants, existing rivals and competition,
consumers/buyers, and suppliers. The analysis
is used to create a roadmap for Just Wood. The
roadmap is characterized by events that could
occur and should be planned for in the event they
come true. The roadmap is linked to Just Woods
business plan. The business plan is short, concise
and to the point and only contains the intelligence
necessary for proper strategic planning. Particular focus is afforded to customers and questions
such as how they see the future of the furniture
industry; customer preferences and what impact
this would have on sales.
Just Wood employees have a generally high
awareness of their CI roles and responsibilities.
The CI function provides insightful analysis
on the competitionwhere they are now, and
most importantly, where they are going. It also
provides insight on causes and likely future
outcomeswhy did things happen as they did,
what is likely to happen in the future, how can the
company capitalize. The CI function also assists
senior management in developing and reviewing
the identified KINs. Review is ongoing, alerting
senior management to issues not currently on its
agenda.
conclusIon
The KINs process is the most difficult task in
the CI cycle. It is the critical first step required
for identifying users intelligence needs, providing focus and purpose to the intelligence effort,
engaging users in the intelligence process, and
developing a sustained process.
KINs are the basis of CI and should have the
support of the whole organization, not just decision makers, as they form the foundation for the
organizations future. They overcome information
0
rEFErEncEs
Calof, J. (2004). Getting real value from trade
shows. Executive Magazine, 1, 11-15.
Evans, M. H. (2005). Course 12: Competitive
intelligence (Part 2 of 2). Retrieved January 3,
2007, from http://www.exinfm.com/training/pdfiles/course12-2.pdf
Finegold, D., Carlucci, S., & Page, A. (2005).
How to conduct competitive intelligence in your
biotech startup. Retrieved January 3, 2007 from
http://www.nature.com/bioent/building/planning/042005/full/bioent854.html
Havenga, J., & Botha, D. (2003). Developing
competitive intelligence in the knowledge-based
organisation. Retrieved Januray 3, 2007, from
http://www.saoug.org.za/archive/2003/0312a.
pdf
Herring, J. P. (2003). Identifying your companys
real intelligence needs. SCIP Online, 1(35). Re-
Chapter VIII
AbstrAct
This chapter discuss the need for organizations to raise the level of awareness about strategic intelligence. It argues that improvement of awareness and scanning practices could be done by developing
a diagnostic tool. The diagnostic tool is an expert system that makes the existing strategic intelligence
practices and underlying processes more explicit and contributes to improved awareness of strategic
intelligence practices. Furthermore, the author hopes that presenting a diagnostic tool will help increase
the level of awareness and provide an assessment framework about strategic intelligence practices.
IntroductIon
Organizations are affected by every facet of
their external environment (Aguilar, 1967; Garg,
Walters & Priem, 2003; Peteraf, 1993; Raymond,
Julien & Ramangalahy, 2001). They need to be
more conscious of their external environment and
of how it may affect them. Management relied on
many systems including management board, organizational systems, and strategic systems. One
such strategic systems, strategic intelligence, is a
recognized way of anticipating changes. Strategic
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
bAckground on strAtEgIc
IntEllIgEncE
A strategic intelligence system is an important
tool for managing the future (Tsoukas & Shepherd, 2004). The main issue is the survival of the
organization, which is threatened by uncertainties
created by the changing environment. Strategic
intelligence can be defined as the result of the
informational process by which an organization
stays attuned to its environment in order to make
decisions and then acts in pursuit of its objectives.
Through strategic intelligence, an organization
monitors information from its external environment that is relevant to its internal environment
(Aguilar, 1967; Bourgeois, 1980; Daft, Sormunen,
& Parks, 1988; Elenkov, 1997; Fleming, 1998;
Thomas, Clark & Gioia 1993). Terms used to
describe concepts similar to strategic intelligence
are business intelligence, competitive intelligence,
environmental scanning, and strategic scanning.
As the terminology is still in flux (Brouard,
2000), in this chapter strategic intelligence and
strategic scanning are used interchangeably as
comprehensive terms that include both results
and process.
Strategic intelligence or strategic scanning
can be viewed as a global process that is divided
into four more specific processes (Brouard, 2000;
Martinet & Ribault, 1989):
Figure 1. (a) Strategic intelligence process and flows, (b) intelligence cycle
Macroenvironment
Senior
management
Resources
Scanning
management
Scanning
resources
Strategic intelligence
Strategies
INPUT
needs
CYCLE
OUTPUT
products
Stakeholders
Decisions
and actions
Scanning
structure
Scanning
culture
Culture
Structure
(a)
CYCLE
CYCLE
DEFENSIVE/OFFENSIVE
OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE
Vulnerabilities
Analysis
Protection
Cycle
Collection
Planning
Protection
Measures
Gathering
Cycle
Analysis
Dissemination
Learning
(b)
concept of Awareness
Facing different settings, organizations should
be aware of the strategic intelligence activities
and their benefits (Bulinge, 2002, 2003; Larivet,
2002). Awareness refers to a better knowledge of a
topic. It refer to a conscious state of the underlying
concept by accumulating some knowledge.
concept of Assessment
With all the environmental changes, there is a
need for organization pilotage. Based on Selmer
(1998) and Genelot (1999a, 1999b), there are four
levels of pilotage: exploitation, management,
evolution, mutation. Strategic intelligence can
be described as a tool used at the evolution and
mutation levelsit supports the development
of strategy, provides a medium- and long-term
perspective, and focuses on external activities.
As such, strategic intelligence is a distinct information system. It could be compare with another
well known information system: accounting. Accounting can be described as a tool used at the
management level to achieve more control, gain
a short- or medium-term perspective, and focus
on internal activities.
Assessment is not new and could be included
in the larger movement of organizational performance (Eccles, 1991; Garstka & Goetzmann,
1999). An organization needs to know where it
stands on different practices, so they can improve. Improvement will mean continuing and
contributing to increased use of suitable practices.
Without assessment, organizations will not be
able to focus on activities they need to achieve
their strategic goals.
Assessing the strategic intelligence practices
will allow an organization to compare their actual
state and a desired state. The comparison will
target specific activities and will prioritize the
action needed. The desired state could be an ideal
state based on the best practices or based on the
fit between the strategic intelligence activities
and the specific needs of an organization. The
assessment scope could be more global or more
specific.
Expert system
Methodology
The research method used for the development of
the diagnostic tool is action research, specifically
prototyping of an expert system. Action research
can be defined as follows:
Action research simultaneously assists in practical problem-solving and expands scientific
knowledge, as well as enhancing the competencies of the respective actors, being performed
collaboratively in an immediate situation using
data feedback in a cyclical process aiming at an
increased understanding of a given social situation, primarily applicable to the understanding of change processes in social systems and
undertaken within a mutually acceptable ethical
framework. (Hult & Lennung, 1980, p. 247)
Prototyping is an approach to building information systems which uses prototypes (Beynon-Davies, Tudehope & Mackay, 1999, p. 108).
A prototype is a preliminary working model of
an information system (or part of it). Prototyping
is a relevant approach for expert systems when
problems are unstructured, like strategic intelligence (Zahedi, 1993).
Using action research, the development of the
prototype could be conceived as a spiral which
is circular and a perpetual process (Baskerville,
1999; Susman & Evered, 1978). Five steps are
suggested by Susman and Evered (1978), namely
diagnosis, planning, action, evaluation, definition
of new knowledge. With multiple iterations, it is
possible to refine the prototype as we go along.
Firm (SME)
Visual Basic
Visual Rule Studio
Inference
engine
User
interface
Report
Diagnosis
Researcher
Access
Questionnaire
Database
Knowledge
base
Knowledge
sources
(experts)
General
diagnosis
Scanning
types
Technological scanning
Commercial scanning
Competitive scanning
Socio scanning
Scanning
context
Scanning structure
Scanning culture
Scanning management
Scanning resources
Scanning
organization
Scanning approach
Scanning formalization
Scanning frequency
Scanning integration
Scanning diversification
Scanning intensity
Scanning ethics
Cycle
Planning
Collection
Analysis
Dissemination
Evaluation
Red
Scanning
process
Yellow
Green
The research method used required two different samples, organizations (SMEs) and experts.
In the study, SMEs are defined as firms with
between 50 and 500 employees. Organizations
were used to develop case studies of their current practices and to evaluate those practices.
Experts contributed to the validation of the tool
developed and refined during the development.
During the prototype development, 6 Canadian
SMEs and 33 international experts (academics
and practitioners) were involved to prepare the
final version of the prototype.
3a
3b
0
Step 3 is the heart of the development and validation of the prototype. Organizations (SME) and
experts are involved in two parallel processes for
testing and evaluation. On one hand, participating
organizations were asked to fill the questionnaire.
The questionnaire served as a basis to write a
case study. The case study was validated by the
organization.
On the other hand, experts were asked to look
at a written case study and to evaluate the scanning practices of that organization using their
own frame of reference. Comments were also
asked on missing or irrelevant data. Using the
researcher frame of reference (Figure 3), a second
evaluation was asked. After receiving the two
evaluations from the expert, the report prepared
with the expert system was sent to experts and
comments were asked.
Steps 4 and 5 involved the trial and analysis
of the prototype. A report was prepared using
the expert system and comments were collected
from the management team of the organization
involved.
report
The diagnostic report on environmental scanning
practices is the main output of the expert system.
This 22-page report includes a general description
of strategic intelligence and the tool being used
in this study, a summary of the traffic light signals, a brief description of the organization being
analyzed, sections on each diagnostic component
(general, scanning types, scanning context, scanning organization, scanning process), an action
plan that includes prioritized recommendations,
an outline of the perceived benefits of and barriers to environmental scanning, an appendix
explaining the diagnostic process, and a table
of contents. Appendix B provides a view of the
summary and the action plan sections.
Using traffic lights that combine the use of geometric forms and colors (square for red, diamond
for yellow, and circle for green) allowed the report
FuturE trEnds
As the diagnostic tool is a prototype, there is some
need for more development on the diagnostic tool.
A number of research opportunities could be
mentionned to improve the proposed tool.
By increasing the number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), it is possible to
refine the tool. A greater number of organizations
in the database could also allow for examination of
some relationships between strategic intelligence
variables. Many variables could also explained
other management variables and practices.
So far, all the materials (questionnaire, menus,
and report) are developped in French. Translation
and adaptation in English should provide a broader
use of the tool.
It is possible to expand the diagnostic tool with
other types of organization (larger organizations,
nonprofit organizations, public sector entities).
Some parameters are already included but could
be enhanced. For example, specific weight are
included to differentiate manufacturing and
service business. More specific weight could be
included for specific industries.
It is possible to compare strategic intelligence diagnosis with a longitudinal perspective.
Adapting the tool could allow to compare many
respondents from the same organization. In our
research, one manager or a small group may have
completed the questionnaire. Many respondents
could underline differences between various
employees.
Another possibility is the development of a
Web-based application of the questionnaire and
the possibility to obtain the report. A web application will allow accessibility of the tool for a
larger population even at the international level.
conclusIon
All organizations should scan their environment
in order to be aware of the next threats and opportunities and to be prepared to react quickly.
As discussed by Bulinge (2002, 2003) and Larivet
(2002), awareness represent a challenge for SME.
It is probably true for all organizations. The proposed diagnostic tool provokes a dialogue and
interest toward an abstract concepts, strategic
intelligence. The tool provides a real artifact
to visualize a methodology. The tool allows an
examination and a critic to improve it.
By using the diagnostic tool, organizations
could assess their strategic intelligence practices.
SME feedback indicates that organizations find
the prototype very useful. The data elicited by
the questionnaire were useful with regard to the
overall management of the businesses as well
as to their strategic intelligence practices. The
diagnostic tool makes the existing strategic intelligence practices and underlying processes more
explicit and contributes to improved awareness
of strategic intelligence practices. The report
balances the needs of the SME executives by targeting important information, providing concrete
examples of action, and explaining the evaluation
results. The four main components of this expert
system are scanning types, scanning context,
scanning organization, and scanning process.
These components are broken down to form a
total of 26 indicators. Those indicators provide
a framework for organizing recommendations
and actions.
A mature expert system could provide reliable
assessment of the scanning practices and will
rEFErEncEs
Aguilar, F. J. (1967). Scanning the business environment. New York: Macmillan.
Auster, E., & Choo, C. W. (1994). CEOs, information, and decision making: Scanning the
environment for strategic advantage. Library
Trends, 43(2), 206-225.
Baskerville, R. L. (1999). Investigating information systems with action research. Communication of the Association for Information Systems,
2(19), 1-31.
Benfer, R. A., Brent, E. E., & Furbee, L. (1991).
Expert systems. Newbury Park: Sage Publications.
Bergeron, P. (1997). Use of a qualitative case
study approach to examine information resources
management. Canadian Journal of Information
and Library Science, 22(3/4), 1-19.
Beynon-Davies, P., Tudehope, D., & Mackay,
H. (1999). Information systems prototyping in
Eccles, R. G. (1991). The performance measurement manifesto. Harvard Business Review, 69(2),
2-8.
Elenkov, D. S. (1997). Strategic uncertainty and
environmental scanning: The case for institutional
influences on scanning behavior. Strategic Management Journal, 18(4), 287-302.
Fleming, R. S. (1998). Assessing organizational
vulnerability to acts of terrorism. S.A.M. Advanced Management Journal, 63(4), 27-32.
Francq, A. (2001). The use of counterintelligence,
security, and countermeasures. In C. S. Fleisher
& D. L. Blenkhorn (Eds.), Managing frontiers in
competitive intelligence (pp. 40-50). Westport:
Quorum Books.
Ganesh, U., Miree, C. E., & Prescott, J. (2003).
Competitive intelligence field research: Moving
the field forward by setting a research agenda.
Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management, 1(1), 1-12.
Garg, V. K., Walters, B. A., & Priem, R. L.
(2003). Chief executive scanning emphases, environmentals dynamism, and manufacturing firm
performance. Strategic Management Journal,
24(8), 725-744.
Garstka, S. & Goetzmann, W. N. (1999). The development of corporate performance measures:
Benchmarks before EVA. Working paper.
Genelot, D. (1999a). Manager dans la complexit
(1re partie), Travail et mthodes, 546, 5-19.
Genelot, D. (1999b). Manager dans la complexit
(2me partie), Travail et mthodes, 547, 17-28.
Ghoshal, S., & Westney, D. E. (1991). Organizing
competitor analysis systems. Strategic Management Journal, 12(1), 17-31.
Hambrick, D. C. (1982). Environmental scanning
and organizational strategy. Strategic Management Journal, 3(2), 159-174.
Liu, S. (1998). Strategics canning and interpretation revisiting: Foundations for a software agent
support systemPart 1: Understanding the concept and context of strategic scanning. Industrial
Management & Data Systems, 7, 295-312.
Martinet, B., & Ribault, J. M. (1989). La veille
technologique, concurrentielle et commerciale.
Sources, mthodologie, organisation. Paris: Les
Editions dOrganisation.
Julien, P.A., Raymond, L., Jacob, R. & Ramangalahy, C. (1997). Information, stratgies et pratiques
de veille technologique dans les PMI. Systmes
dinformation & Management, 2(2), 63-83.
Julien, P. A., Raymond, L., Jacob, R. & Ramangalahy, C. (1999). Types of technological scanning
in manufacturing SMEs: An empiricial analysis
of patterns and determinants. Entrepreneurship
and Regional Development, 11, 281-300.
High
- Technology
- Clients
- Suppliers
- Competitors
- Social context
(demography, ecology, political, legal, socio-cultural, economical )
For each statement regarding the scanning frequency, circle the appropriate answer.
If yes :
no
yes
no
yes
low
medium
fast
Indicate the importance of your needs for specific information. For each information, circle the appropriate answer.
Not
important
Very
important
Information on:
n/a
new process
new equipments
materials
new products
Indicate the importance of some decisions for your organization. For each decision, circle the appropriate answer.
Not
important
Very
important
Decisions regarding :
n/a
strategic orientations
crisis management
recruiting
financing
cost control
Indicate if your organization use the following source of information. For each source, circle the
appropriate answer.
Not
important
Very
important
Sources of information:
n/a
managers
organization personnel
clients
suppliers
yellow
50
SCANNING TYPES
green
90
Technological scanning
green
90
Commercial scanning
green
90
Competitive scanning
green
90
Socio scanning
green
90
yellow
50
Scanning structure
green
90
Scanning culture
yellow
50
Scanning management
green
90
Scanning resources
red
10
green
90
Scanning approach
yellow
50
Scanning formalization
green
90
Scanning frequency
green
90
Scanning integration
green
90
Scanning diversification
green
90
Scanning intensity
yellow
50
Scanning ethics
red
10
yellow
50
Cycle
green
90
Planning
yellow
50
Collection
yellow
50
Analysis
yellow
50
Dissemination
yellow
50
Evaluation
yellow
50
SCANNING CONTEXT
SCANNING ORGANIZATION
SCANNING PROCESS
Note: Square = Red level (Action); Diamond = Red level (Improve); Circle = Green level (Pursuit)
0
Chapter IX
AbstrAct
This chapter uses the market value to assess the different factors and actors that influence the firm performance. The market value of a company, obtained from the stock exchange, can be used to both, detect
and measure the impact of elements of the role, market, and far environment. The empirical application
analyzes the hospitality industry that is currently facing an increasingly complex business environment:
apart from the terms uncertainty, complexity, and dynamism that shape the environment, in this industry
the concepts of munificence and illiberality are strongly applied. This procedure can aid in scanningrelated activities, as the analysis shows that environmental events are recognized quite well.
IntroductIon
According to the theory of open systems, Selznick
postulated in 1948 that organizations are cooperative systems constituted of individuals interacting
in relation to a formal system of coordination.
This structure is an adaptive entity reacting to
influences upon it from an external environment.
In order to maintain this system, the organization has to be awoken to, for instance, potential
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Pt = d s (1 + i ) s + Pt + n (1 + i ) ( t + n )
s =1
Pt = d s (1 + i ) s
s =1
Pt = d s ( s )(1 + i ) s
s =1
sk ,k K s
s =1
Pt
Ks
h
s =1 k =1
sk ,k K s
=
s =1
h
k =1
(1 + i ) s
sk ,kK s
Kt
Pt
Kt
s =1
tk ,k K t
k =1
k =1
(1 + i ) s
tk ,k K t
Kt
Kt
Pt 1
ln Pt
tk ,k K t
Kt
k =1
t2
+ ... +
tK
Kt
n = J +1
k = N +1
K > N > J
j =2
Kt
k =1
Kt
t1 +
j =2
tj xtj +
n = J +1
x =
tn tn
RMt +
RIto
where the RIto is the orthogonalized industrial index which is arrived at by the residuals obtained
from regressing R It on RMt, in such a way that
both effects -market and industrial- are not correlated, and M y I are the parameters that show
these effects.3
Given that this way of making the model
operational falls, indeed, into the framework
of multifactor models where several measures
disturbance ut is equal to
t
Kt
~ N (0,
x + t, being
tk tk
k = J +1
), where
k = J +1
x represents an at-
tk tk
Rt =
g =1
k = N +1
g Dg +
g =1
x +
tk tk
Mg RMt Dg +
g =1
Ig
RIto Dg
EMpIrIcAl ApplIcAtIon
data, sample and operationalization
of the Model
A series of data is gathered from a hotel chain
publicly trading in the Spanish Stock Exchange,
ranging from July 2, 1996 to December 30,
1999. To be precise, this is the leading chain in
Spain, Sol Meli, with an average assets of about
3,051 million and a number of hotels of 29,000
plus. As to the period study, the upper threshold
is determined by the data availability and the
lower by the day the chain started trading in the
stock exchange.6 All analysis and simulations
carried out subsequently will be obtained from
this study period.
These data consist of two types: First, the daily
returns the asset is reaching during this period are
collected, which are adjusted by dividends, capital
increases, and splits, so that they are expressed by
Rit=Ln(PtSFt+rt+dt)LnPt-1, where Pt is the price,
SFt the split factor, rt the suscription right and dt
the dividend paid, all of which refer to day t.
For the second type of data, we look at newspapers to find news related to the chain (This task
has been done by means of the Baratz database,
2.
3.
4.
5.
Rit =
g =1
+
k =1
14
tg
Dg +
g =1
16
xkt +
k =7
14
Mg
xkt +
RMt Dg +
Ig
g =1
RIto Dg
where xkt k{1,...,6} are the variables of environmental events and xkt k{7,...,16} are the items
related to the stock exchange issues that must
be controlled. The other variables have already
been defined. Finally, an aspect to be taken into
account is the error term. t may be comprised
of two different kinds of effects, t =t+t: on the
one hand, the error term includes the measurement error t in the estimation, and on the other,
it also considers unobserved news items t, which
have been overlooked by the analyst, (e.g., items
not published in the newspapers reviewed, or
items released in other forms of news media).
To mitigate their effects as far as possible, two
dummy variables represent the kinks in the series
of returns that are either too high (x17) or too low
(x18), that appeared in the residual plot outside a
1% threshold on days where unknown information
is supposed to be released. The final expression
is therefore as follows:
14
Rit =
g =1
+
k =1
14
tg
Dg +
g =1
16
xkt +
k =7
14
Mg
RMt Dg +
g =1
18
Ig
xkt +
k =17
xkt +
RIto Dg
results
By applying the Chow test to the global regression
and the individual parameters it was found that
the parameters that present structural change are
those referred to the market and the industry. To
be precise, we get an F equal to 5.38 for the global
parameters, and 1.14, 21.47, 3.13, respectively,
for the specific risk, the market and industry
parameter.
0
0.098***
-0.013
-0.029
-0.028
0.009
-0.073**
H-B Act
Ecotax
Tender
Public Of.
0.003
January
0.033
0.062
0.026
-0.003
-0.004
-0.003
-0.003
0.008**
-0.003
0.003
-0.003
-0.008
-0.040
-0.003
-0.012
1.000
Ranking
0.002
Monday
-0.029
0.010
0.025
0.025
Splits
-0.005
0.023
0.025
-0.012
-0.049
0.025
Capital
Dividends
Profits
-0.007
-0.023
Hurricanes
0.016
-0.011
0.001
-0.006
0.020
1.000
Deal
Ranking
Industry
Awards
0.000
-0.040
Industry
1.000
Market
Market
-0.033
-0.044
-0.006
-0.005
-0.005
0.050
-0.001
-0.001
-0.005
-0.011
-0.005
-0.005
1.000
Awards
-0.009
-0.017
-0.002
-0.001
-0.001
-0.001
-0.001
0.001
0.001
-0.003
-0.001
1.000
Deal
-0.009
-0.017
-0.002
-0.001
-0.001
0.005
-0.001
-0.001
-0.001
-0.003
1.000
Hurricanes
-0.023
-0.007
-0.004
-0.003
-0.003
-0.011
-0.001
-0.001
-0.003
1.000
H-B
Act
-0.009
-0.017
-0.002
-0.001
-0.001
-0.005
-0.001
-0.001
1.000
Ecotax
-0.125***
-0.017
-0.002
-0.001
-0.001
0.005
0.001
1.000
Tender
-0.009
-0.017
-0.002
-0.001
-0.001
0.005
1.000
Public
Offers
0.033
0.044
-0.006
-0.050
-0.005
1.000
Profits
-0.009
-0.017
-0.002
-0.010
1.000
Dividends
-0.009
0.069
0.020
1.000
Splits
0.013
0.037
1.000
Capital
-0.100
1.000
Monday
1.000
January
Box 1.
Rt
g =1
+ g =1
+ k = J +1
+ t
MVt 1 =
+
xtk
xtk
xtk
xtk
xtk
xtk
MVt 1 =
MVt 1
Parameter
Standard Deviation
-0.001**
0.000
M1
0.063*
0.037
M2
0.623**
0.265
M3
0.917***
0.237
M4
0.778***
0.097
M5
0.715***
0.178
M6
0.835***
0.105
M7
0.945***
0.158
M8
0.995***
0.138
M9
1.125***
0.102
M10
0.900***
0.144
M11
0.600***
0.110
M12
0.830***
0.240
M13
0.888***
0.115
M14
0.891***
0.166
I1
0.342
0.212
I2
-0.007
0.263
I3
-0.064
0.204
I4
0.164*
0.088
I5
0.091
0.144
I6
0.387**
0.183
I7
-0.291**
0.118
I8
-0.474**
0.236
I9
-0.071
0.141
I10
0.102
0.276
I11
0.158
0.124
I12
0.058
0.276
I13
-0.165
0.235
I14
0.120
0.165
1 = rankings
0.005
0.004
2 = awards
0.016***
0.006
3 = deal broken
0.015***
0.000
4 = hurricane
-0.010***
0.003
5 = Helms-Burton Act
-0.012*
0.006
6 = Ecotax law
0.000
0.003
0.028***
0.003
-0.011***
0.002
-0.172***
0.003
0.022***
0.001
Table 2. continued
11 = declaration of profits
0.009**
0.004
12 = publication of dividends
-0.010***
0.002
13 = split
0.034***
0.002
14 = increases in capital
-0.006***
0.002
15 = Monday effect
0.001
0.001
16 = January effect
-0.001
0.001
0.039***
0.002
-0.035***
0.003
R-squared
0.644
Adjusted R-squared
0.624
F-statistic
32.18
Prob(F-statistic)
0.000
Note: * p<0.1; ** p<0.05; *** p<0.01. +17, 18 account for the kinks too high or too low appeared in the residual plot in days
where unknown information was released.
conclusIon
Understanding and quantifying the cause and
effect relationships which exist between environmental events and firm performance is crucial so
as to gain strategic intelligence. Managers should
identify the forces that cause variability in the
firms cash flow, and concentrate on monitoring
them and determining their impact on this performance measure. With this respect, this chapter
proposes an approach which models the impact
that different kinds of elements within the environment have on the present value of future cash
flows per share, in such a way that it is possible
to find a direct link between the environmental
factors and their effects on firm performance. This
approach not only detects the events affecting the
organization but it also quantifies their impacts. It
can be regarded as being both quantitative (as it is
based on the ground statistical properties provided
by portfolio theory) and qualitative (being based
on the investors expectations).
An important issue to be considered here is the
type of response observed from the investors. In
contrast to other techniques, in this method they
do not merely give opinions, but act according
to their perceptions, which, in this case, implies
deciding on how they invest their own money. As
this implies a high involvement for the investor,
it means that the measurements obtained must be
considerably reliable.
An empirical application has been carried
out in one of the most important elements of the
tourism industry, that is, the hospitality market.
The analysis shows that environmental events are
recognized quite well. A limitation to be considered in this procedure is that the analyst may not
always be able to obtain all of the information
that has been released, so that special care must
be taken to assure that no significant data have
been ignored. Bearing this caveat in mind, this
study has shown its effectiveness in analysing
rEFErEncEs
EndnotEs
1
Roll, R., & Ross, S. (1984, May-June). The arbitrage pricing theory approach to strategic portfolio
planning. Financial Analysis Journal, 14-26.
Rozeff, M. S., & Kinney, W. R. (1976). Capital
market Seasonality: The case of stock returns.
Journal of Financial Economics, 3, 379-402.
Schwert, G. W. (1981). Using financial data to
measure effects of regulation. Journal of Law
and Economics, 24, 121-158.
Chapter X
AbstrAct
Strategic intelligence involves examination of internal and external organizational environments. Of
course people inhabited each of these environments. Whether they are customers, allies or employees,
these are not standardized units but real human beings with personal histories, perspectives, and opinions. Recent research and practice have led to the development of relatively complex methods for inquiry
which can be applied by human analysts and which recognize contextual dependencies in a problem
situation. One such method, the strategic systemic thinking framework, is outlined in this chapter. The
purpose of complex analysis in relation to strategic intelligence is not, in our perspective, decisionmakingit is developing an ability to make informed decisions. Until software tools could not support
recently complex methods, since the limitations of traditional mathematical algorithms constrained their
development. We suggest a model, which lays the foundations for the development of software support
and can tolerate the inherent ambiguity in complex analysis, based on paraconsistent (multivalued)
mathematical logic.
IntroductIon
A perfection of means and confusion of aims
seems to be our main problem.
~ Albert Einstein
Unless their firms are fortunate to enjoy an enduring natural monopoly, managers in every business
must concern themselves in a perennial search
for a sustainable competitive position. In this
context, strategic intelligence may be considered
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
0
At one time, many authorities described strategy formulation in terms of rational planning
and goal-setting, whereby a corporate mission
would be translated into objectives and targets
at increasing levels of concrete detail (see, for
example, Johnson & Scholes, 1993). Such a view
has long been criticized as nave and unreflective of
organizational life in practice. Mintzberg (1994),
for example, contrasts a planning model with an
alternative view of strategic thinking, involving
intuition and creativity and coming about through
messy processes of informal learning that must
necessarily be carried out by people at various
levels who are deeply involved with the specific
issues at hand. This view is supported by empirical work carried out by Currie (1995) and by
Walsham (1993), who points to a dynamic, socio-political process within multi-level contexts
underlying strategic thinking. Whichever view is
preferred, there is a broad measure of agreement
that strategic intelligence involves examination
of internal, as well as external, organizational
environments. A difficulty then arises that each
of these environments is inhabited by people, and
whether they are customers, allies, or employees,
these are not standardized units, but real human
beings with personal histories, perspectives, and
opinions. Claudio Ciborra (2002) puts this very
well when he speaks of management meetings,
and decision-making, in the following way:
Something that is beyond technology, management and organization, but that contributes to
put all these things into action: those participants
being there in the session with their personal
histories, problems, projects, visions, and disillusions. What is at stake in those situations is
who they are, where they come from professionally and personally, and towards what they are
projected in relation to the issues raised by the
speaker. (p. 5)
It is essential to recognize power relations as
a part of organizational culture and management
lEArnIng-knoWIng And
sEnsE-MAkIng
When we, as human beings, try to make sense of
the world, it could be argued that we, as human
observers, create our own reality. For example,
Maturana and Varela (1980) discuss this as follows:
Reality as a universe of independent entities about
which we can talk is, necessarily, a fiction of the
purely descriptive domain and ... we in fact should
apply the notion of reality to this very domain of
descriptions in which we, the describing system,
interact with our descriptions as if they were
independent entities. (Ibid, p. 52)
Later on Maturana and Varela (1980) write:
The question: What is the object of knowledge? becomes meaningless. There is no object
of knowledge. To know is to be able to operate
adequately in an individual or cooperative situation (Ibid, p. 53).
Opinions differ about the meaning of the term
knowledge. Before turning attention to the processes of knowledge creation and sharing, it is
useful to consider what we mean in this context.
For example a discussion offered by Davenport
and Prusak (in Gamble & Blackwell, 2001).
Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience,
values, contextual information, expert insight and
grounded intuition that provides an environment
buzz words, or certain models become fashionable, they may become an unquestioned context
for grasping aspects of the world under study.
Generalized models of organizational structure
are pointed out as an example of what Heidegger
called illusory appearances. While such models may have a valid role as a means to focus
thinking and stimulate inquiry, researchers may
become over-enthusiastic to seize a generalized
idea in searching for a framework of study for
a contextually-unique situation. Ciborra (2002)
suggests that such an idea may in fact act as a
show stopper, a model that biases, deflects and
ultimately blocks reflection (p. 177).
In the course of their research, the authors
frequently experience use both of the term resolution and solution. These terms tend to be used
interchangeably in discussing decision options in
problematic situations, where interests of different
stakeholders are found to conflict. They are also
used in situations where potential new opportunities are under discussion. In the context of analysis
of complex problem spaces we find the term resolution more adequate than the term solution. The
latter could easily, from old school maths, carry a
connotation of a well-defined problem, which has
one or maybe a few correct solutions. But how
many problem spaces in organizations correspond
to such well-defined problems? There might be
some, which could be described in this way, and
which could become fairly approximated by such
models. However, these, we presume, will belong
to a class of well-known tasks or difficulties. In
cases where problems spaces are assumed to be
complex, and thus a relevant area for exercise of
strategic intelligence, we doubt if there exist any
of this class. As we understand it, categories of
resolutions which fit the pattern of bivalued logic
would be likely to address only those problem
spaces which appear to be well-defined. If we ask
a colleague Are these the latest figures relating
to Project X? then that colleague may be willing
to answer Yes or No (using bivalued logic).
However, ask that same colleague whether these
figures are sufficient to enable us to reach a judgment about the project, and she may hesitate to
give such a response.
It is the authors common experience in everyday life that, when posing a question to someone,
we might receive the answer It depends. An
individual is giving an answer that is conditional
on obtaining further data about the context of the
question. This suggests to us that people may be
comfortable with multivalued logic when dealing with everyday decisions. The problem is not
necessarily assessed on a scale of truth or falsity
(bi-valued logic). If true or false is inadequate,
we might consider a three-valued modelyes,
no, or it depends. However, this still does not
include a possibility that the person questioned
is baffled. A person might say I have no idea.
We believe a four-valued model of reasoning is
therefore preferable (please see Table 1). We are
also aware that any statement of belief a person
makes can reflect a higher or lower degree of
certainty. This is often reflected in survey forms
which ask us to state the strength of our agreement/disagreement with a given statement, according to a Likert scale.
We accept that occasions arise when it is
beneficial to break problems down and simplify
them. However, this is not something we would
wish to advocate as a matter of course. Routine
and systematic attempts to simplify inquiry are, in
our view, by definition reductionist. If we attempt
to identify every aspect of a problem separately, in
isolation from its context, to establish the truth or
falsity of certain key parameters, then we ignore
emergence. We would advocate instead a complexification of inquiry, creating a multivalued
assessment and categorization through elaboration
upon individual expressions of it depends.
However, we must also recognize that complex
analytical work, such as inquiry into contextual
dependency, can easily become overwhelming in
its scope and complexity. Exploring individual
perspectives in seeking resolutions in a complex
problem space requires painstaking work and
Inter Analysis
Value Analysis
Communication in inter-analysis, and reflection in value analysis together support creation of a learning spiral.
The analysis may be approached in any order.
Inter-analysis
Group sharing
communication and
development of individual
perspectives
Learning Spiral
Process
Dynamics
Perspective
Value-analysis
Validation
Prioritization from political
and cultural perspectives
Perspective
Process
Dynamics
0
pArAconsIstEnt logIc
Human beings are, generally speaking, perfectly
capable in everyday life of dealing with paradoxes
and self-contradictory resolutions without becoming unduly perplexed. When people are exercising
their common sense they may resort to a tendency
that, when specific solutions are requested, contradictory resolutions are given. When personal
investment in a solution is experienced as low, we
can afford to give general solutions to others and
ourselves. However, when personal investment in
a solution is experienced as high, the situation is
different. The problem is no longer experienced as
a simple one; it is likely that we no longer feel we
can afford to give a solution, and then we resort
to a resolution. This is because we admit that our
assertions are tentative, and that due to complexity
of problem space there is a limit on the degree of
precision we are prepared to guarantee. Decisionmaking, especially strategic decision-making, is
essentially bound up in assessment of risk and
associated cost factors. What human beings can
do (and seem to do without hesitation in every day
life) is to work with complementary categories of
resolutions. These categories include conditions
Data
Process
Analysis
Expert systems
Intelligent scenarios
Artificial Intelligence
Decision-making
rEFErEncEs
Carlsson, S. A. (2001). DSS developed by managers: What is really supported? Journal of Decision
Systems, 10(2), 217-240.
Johnson, G., & Scholes, K. (2002). Exploring corporate strategy: Text and cases (6th ed.). London:
Prentice Hall.
Ciborra, C. (2002). The labyrinths of information: Challenging the wisdom of systems. Oxford
University Press.
Seely Brown, J. (1991, January-February). Research that reinvents the corporation. Harvard
Business Review.
Seeley Brown, J., & Duguid, P. (2002). The social life of information (2nd ed.). Boston: Harvard
Business School Press.
Schein, E. (1992). Organizational culture &
leadership (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass
Section IV
Supporting
Strategic Intelligence
Processing: Technologies
Chapter XI
AbstrAct
This chapter is about conceptualizing the applicability of grid related technologies for supporting intelligence in decision-making. It aims to discuss how the open grid service architecturedata, access
integration (OGSA-DAI) can facilitate the discovery of and controlled access to vast data-sets, to assist
intelligence in decision making. Trust is also identified as one of the main challenges for intelligence in
decision-making. On this basis, the implications and challenges of using grid technologies to serve this
purpose are also discussed. To further the explanation of the concepts and practices associated with the
process of intelligence in decision-making using grid technologies, a minicase is employed incorporating a scenario. That is to say, Synergy Financial Solutions Ltd is presented as the minicase, so as to
provide the reader with a central and continuous point of reference.
IntroductIon
This section provides grounding in intelligence
informed decision making technologies, their
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
0
EnAblIng IntEllIgEncE In
dEcIsIon MAkIng usIng grId
tEchnologIEs
The objective of this section is to discuss and
exemplify the potential of how grid technologies,
VOs and open grid service architecturedata
access integration (OGSA-DAI) within a dynamically changing environment can assist intelligence
in decision-making. We do this, by discussing
Simons (1977) well known decision making
phases intelligence-design-choice alongside
with the concept of bounded rationality.
With this in mind we go on to describe a typical SME financial services application in which a
fictitious organization (Synergy Ltd) seeks to
engage in a VO partnership with several universities so as to seek to leverage the computational
power of the grid for competitive advantage. The
scenario serves as an integrative element within
this chapter, since the remaining sections make
explicit reference to it.
Figure 1. VO Grid partners extended search space (Extended version of Simons bounded rationality
theory, 1977)
real-time processing capacity. If required, a university partner may decide to move data to the
distributed environment as required to meet time
related constraints. The concept is rather similar
in principle to the UK National Grid, whereby
electricity is generated and distributed across
many providers and consumers according to realtime demand. In this case, Synergy is deemed to
be the consumer and their university partners are
deemed to be their suppliers. Not electricity of
course, but of share pattern analytics derived from
both historical and real timeshare data.
By entering into a grid partnership, Synergy
will be provided with even more opportunities to
make intelligence informed decisions and produce
more accurate predictions. Using Simons (1977)
three-phase systematic decision-making theory
(intelligence-design-choice), Synergys data
analysts will have access to a wider selection of
available financial strategies including more data
mining tools and models available through the grid
partnership. For example, university academic,
research, and technical members of staff will
provide such support and share their expertise
with Synergy. On the other hand, Synergy could
0
make available a number of incomplete and obsolete data-sets that can be used by the university
partners for educational and research purposes.
That is to say, tutors could demonstrate to students
how to apply advanced fractal financial modeling
using real world data-sets. Similarly, researchers
could undertake experimental research to further
advance financial models for the benefit of Synergy
and the wider community.
Overall, the VO approach will extend the opportunities to see things from a multiperspective
point of view that will ultimately advance the involved partners. It is anticipated that the intended
approach will expand available opportunities by
extending the actual search space and by facilitating methods required to deliver a better quality
of service. The ability to share and compute a
vast data-set alongside with the incorporation
of advanced modelling tools and utilisation of
expertise across the grid application environment will support Synergys managers and data
analysts. PrivateInvestor package customers
and grid partners will make intelligence informed
decisions. For Synergy, this will result in a no
cost solution that will provide a higher quality
Action 1: Synergys data analyst as a service requestor will need to request the data
access and integration service grid register
(DAISGR) for source of data about X.
Action 2: Register will return a handle to
the service requestor.
Action 3: Register will send a request to
the factory (GDSF) to access the relevant
data-sets that are registered with it.
Action 4: Factory will create a grid data
service (GDS) to manage access to relevant
data-sets.
Action 5: Factory will return a handle of
the GDS to Synergys data analyst.
Action 6a: Synergys data analyst as a service requestor will perform the query to the
respective GDS using a database language
such as SQL.
Action 7: The GDS will interact with the
data-set(s).
Action 8a: The GDS will return querys
results in a XML format to the service
requestor.
Semiotic
Trust Ladder
Applicability
(VO Grid Lifecycle)
Planning stage
Cultural/Social trust
Policy signs
Reputation signs
Authentication/validity signs
Intrusion detection/prevention
adequate?
Run time
Messaging/traffic management
signs
Signs
conclusIon
This chapter has endorsed the logic that the concepts and practices associated with grid related
technologies can assist managers in making
intelligence informed decisions within a virtual
organisation (VO). This approach will extend the
opportunities to see things from a multi-perspective point of view that will ultimately challenge,
mature and advance the involved partners. It is anticipated that the decision to use grid technologies
will unfold new opportunities as it will enlarge the
actual search space boundaries within the term of
problem space as described by Simon (1977). By
default, a problem space represents the boundary
of an identified problem and contains all possible
solutions to that problem. It might then still be
possible not identify the optimal solution but it
is more likely to increase the opportunities for a
better solution to be encountered. Overall, it will
facilitate methods towards normative thinking as
required for a better quality of service.
In the context of this chapter, we have referred
to a VO as the ability to share and exploit commodities within a dynamic distributed environment via networks. Commodities as services are
shared and exploited via the use of policies and
may include but are not limited to computational
nodes, stored data, expertise, and other resources.
We have referred to them as transient, fluid services since they enter and leave based on their
availability and a number of policies.
A core element of this chapter has been to
highlight those VOs within grid environments
that are frequently not limited by technical consideration alone. We took the holistic view that
VOs are also a kind of a social network. Therefore,
trust was examined as a soft issue with respect to
its structure, cognitive aspects, and relations. In
particular, we discussed the role of soft trust issues
at two distinct intangible and ambiguous levels of
abstraction: at the VO level of abstraction and the
rEFErEncEs
Alter, S. L. (1980). Decision support systems:
Current practices and continuing challenges.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Antonioletti, M., Atkinson, M. P., Baxter, R.,
Borley, A., Chue Hong, N. P., Collins, B., et al.
(2005). The design and implementation of grid
database services in OGSA-DAI. Concurrency
and Computation: Practice and Experience,
7(2-4), 357-376.
Asimakopoulou, E., Anumba, C. J. & Bouchlaghem, D. (2005). Studies of emergency management procedures in Greece, Italy and the UK. In
Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference
on Construction in the 21st century, Advancing
Engineering, Management & Technology, Athens,
Greece (pp.15-17).
Atkinson, M., DcRoure, D., Dunlop, A., Fox, G.,
Henderson, P., Hey, T., et al. (2005). Web service
grids: An evolutionary approach. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from http://www.nesc.ac.uk/technical_papers/UkeS-2004-05.pdf
Bessis, N. & Wells, J. (2005, March 22-24). Grid
technologies revive the basic IT infrastructure.
Information Systems Unplugged: Developing
Relevant Research. In Proceedings of the UKAIS
2005:10th International Conference in Information Systems, Newcastle, UK.
00
Tan, Y.-H. & Thoen, W. (2003). Electronic contract drafting based on risk and trust assessment.
International Journal of Electronic Commerce,
7(4), 55-71.
Ratnasingam, P. (2005). E-commerce relationships: The impact of trust on relationship continuity. International Journal of Commerce and
Management, 15(1), 1-16.
Reinoso Castillo, J. A., Silvescu, A., Caragea, D.,
Pathak, J. & Honavar, V. G. (2004). Information
extraction and integration from heterogeneous,
distributed, autonomous information sourcesA
federated ontology-driven query-centric approach. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from http://
www.cs.iastate.edu/~honavar/Papers/indusfinal.
pdf
Rousseau, D. M., Sitkin, S. B., Burt, R. S. &
Camerer, C. (1998). Not so different after all: A
cross-discipline view of trust. Academy Management Review, 23, 393-404.
Scott-Morton, M. S. (1971). Management decision
systems: Computer-based support for decision
making. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Simon, H. (1977). The new science of management
decision. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Tiong, Choo T. (2005). ApplicationsGrid enabling experience: The soft aspects. Retrieved
January 5, 2007, from http://gridasia.ngp.org.
sg/papers/t10.pdf
Ullman, J. (1997). Information integration using
logical views. In Proceedings of the 6th ICDT,
Delphi, Greece (pp. 19-40).
Venugopal, S., Buyya, R. & Ramamohanarao,
K. (2005). A taxonomy of data grids for distributed data sharing management and processing.
Retrieved January 5, 2007, from http://arxiv.
org/abs/cs.DC/0506034
Will, H. & Whobrey, D. (2003). The assurance
paradigm and organisational semiotics: A new
applications domain. In Proceedings of the 6th
International Workshop on Organisational Semiotics (pp. 197-222).
Xu, M. Hu, Z., Long, W. & Liu, W. (2004). Service
virtualisation: Infrastructure and applications.
In I. Foster & C. Kesselman (Eds.), Proceedings
of the Grid 2, Blueprint for a New Computing
Infrastructure. CA: Elsevier.
0
0
Chapter XII
AbstrAct
RFID-enabled business models are proposed in this chapter to innovate supply chain management.
The models demonstrated benefits from automatically captured real-time information in supply chain
operations. The resulting visibility creates chances to operate businesses in more responsive, dynamic,
and efficient scenarios. The actual initiative of such novel RFID enabled applications is therefore to
encourage intelligent supply chain management to dynamically respond changes and events in real-time.
As the RFID implementation costs are continuously decreasing, it is expected that more novel business
models would be inspired by the technological advancement to foster more intelligent supply chains in
the near future.
IntroductIon
Enterprises have been experiencing significant
changes in the realms of technology, organization
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
supply chain wide decision-making through strategic business intelligence to sustain enterprise
competitiveness (Krishnamurthy, 2002; Srinivasa
& Swarup, 2002). One of the important enabling
technologies to build up business intelligence is
the identification and tracking technology, with
which the product-centric information resources
and associated decision-making systems can be
established within and beyond enterprises (Davie,
2002). The information about product movements
is crucial to the supply chain efficiency, agility, and
product safety (Jakobs, Pils, & Wallbaum, 2001).
Product identification and tracking technologies
have been developed over timefrom paper based
manual recording systems to the semi-automatic
barcode technology associated with optical-digital
data processing systems. In recent years, a wireless identification technology, radio frequency
identification (RFID), has attracted increasing
attentions in supply chain management. Many
trials have been implemented with recognized
benefits including improved traceability, reduced
labor costs, increased speed, greater responsiveness, and better product quality.
A networked RFID system integrates local
identification and tracking data with a networked
supply chain system through Internet. Unlike
barcode systems, the RFID technology can remotely identify physical objects instead of visual
alignment of each product with a scanner. It can
communicate with multiple products simultaneously and dynamically update the data on RFID
tags. The technology provides opportunities in
automation of the data capture, item-level product
visibility, and particularly in the business process
transparency, integration and collaboratively
decision making. Therefore, integrated RFID
systems are of greater potential to enhance the
intelligence of supply chain management than
traditional identification technologies.
This chapter will focus on the RFID-enabled
intelligence for innovation of the enterprise operations and supply chain management. The barcode
and RFID based identification technologies are
IdEntIFIcAtIon tEchnologIEs
And AssocIAtEd systEMs
The RFID technology is one of the efficient
identification technologies. Other technologies
include one-dimension barcodes, two-dimension
barcodes, DNA based bio-barcodes, and global
positioning systems (GPS). Although advantages
of the RFID technology have been broadly recognized in the past few years, the (one dimension
or linear) barcode system has been a dominant
identification technology for the last two decades.
In this section, we will review technical details
of the RFID and linear barcode systems.
0
0
Figure 2. RFID plastic tag, paper tags, and reader systems (Source: Microlise, 2003)
Tags
Readers
0
Table 1. Communication features of RFID systems with different frequencies (Source: de Jonge, 2004)
Frequency
Shot Description
125-134 kHz
LF
0.45
1-10
13.56 MHz
HF
<1
10-40
868-870
UHF
2-5
10-50
902-928 MHz
0
0
0
0
0
Figure 6. A case of dynamic product value tracing in a food supply chain (Adapted from Li et al., 2005)
Vm , k *g = b k *g V f m , g e
Vm d , k = b k *g Vm , k *g e
Vd , j*k = b j*k Vm d , k e
Vd r , j = b j*k Vd , j*k e
Vr , i* j = b i* j Vd r , j e
f m , k *g
m, k
tm , k )
m d , j*k
d, j
t f m , k *g )
tm d ,
j*k
td , j )
d r , i* j
td r , i* j )
i = 1, 2,3, 4; j = 1, 2; k = 1, 2; g = 1, 2.
b k * g , b j *k , b i * j
1, Delivery was paased throug the route
=
Otherwise
0,
(2)
Present product value = Original Value EXP(T)
(1)
leads to penalties. The objective of such an application would be maximizing the aggregated
profits of the retail stores in the supply chain.
The relationship between a product sales
price and demands can be represented by widely
adopted price-dependent demand descriptions in
the economic research literature. The form of the
demand description can be either determinative
in a linear or nonlinear form, or with a stochastic function. As the perishable foods deteriorate
over time, given accurately captured data for
the product value variations through the RFID
sensor network, a dynamic pricing decision can
be made against potential consumer responses to
the value variation. A price marking down policy
can be consequently developed to dynamically
match demand changes with proper price levels.
The benefits identified from the product tracing
approach are likely to vary with the consumer
buying behavior. The more important the product
quality or value that is perceived by consumers, the
more benefits the dynamic product value tracing
approach would generate.
Every IP has two componentsa physical entity and informational presentation. The physical
entity is the physical product which is equipped
with RFID technology. The informational presentation of an IP can be an individual software
agent that owns some product-related data (e.g.,
unique ID) and acts (e.g., negotiate with other
agents, make decisions) on behalf of the products
interest (e.g., short lead-time and low costs, etc.).
An IP retains data about itself. The informational
part of the IP retrieves the data through the RFID
technology. The IP may also keep dynamic data
regarding products movements and processing
requirements, and so forth. The IP system can
access networked data sources (local databases
or ONS registered network sources) that stores
product data such as production requirements,
historical records, and so forth. The local manufacturing unit, IP systems and enterprise systems,
can be integrated with such networked sources so
that the data are visible and updatable by different
cooperative parties. This allows manufacturing
activities to be responsive to the dynamic environment.
In addition to the product variety issues, customers may request to change the requirements
of an ordered product before it is produced. The
requests lead to changes of a production process.
Consequently, manufacturers need increased visibility to the latest updates in order to conform to
the customer needs. To cope with this, the IP approach may be adopted to track individual product
items in real time and responsively make decisions
for updating a manufacturing process.
Figure 8. Proposed IP-driven scheduling system architecture (Adapted from Liu, Li, & Kehoe, 2006)
Figure 9. The workflows of the proposed IP-driven scheduling system (Adapted from Liu et al., 2006)
Unique identifier: A serial number or unique identity can be assigned to specific item
Efficiency: Many tags can be read simultaneously
Data Capture
Automation
Accuracy and cost-effectiveness: Without human involvement in data scanning
Figure 10. A framework of the integrated traceability-operations management solution. (PCMS: package coding management system)
provide the real time traceability data of production process and raw materials, such as production
facility, processing history, supplier information
of raw materials, and its storage period and quality status for production planning and inventory
control processes. On one hand, the integrated
solution provides the real time information that
enables to optimize production plan and a better
quality control for lower costs and better product
quality. On the other hand, the optimised pro-
Table 3. Potential benefits of integrating traceability system with operations and supply chain management
Processes
Optimal production planning; avoid uneconomic raw material mixture, reduce the production
lead time.
Inventory Control
Quality Control
Better quality and process control; efficient and accurate risk assessment, dynamic product
quality and safety evaluation.
Coding automation; accurate and efficient coding process; additional traceability data on the
package.
Shelf Management
Reverse Supply Chain management
Supply and Logistic/Distribution
Management
concludIng rEMArks
The proposed business models in the third section, utilize the RFID technology to improve the
visibility of products and their relevant attributes
in logistic or manufacturing operations. The
visibility consequently creates chances to operate the businesses in more responsive, dynamic,
and efficient scenarios. In such proposed RFID
applications, the technology is not only used as
a replacement for barcode systems. The actual
initiative is to encourage the sense and respond
management strategy which enables more agile
0
expected to play more important roles in the innovation of supply chain management. Although this
chapter focuses on the RFID enabled intelligence
for innovative enterprise operations and supply
chain management, it is apparently that the RFID
technology is not the only player in the technology
driven business innovation. Applications of the
grid computing technology, agent based systems,
global positioning system, wireless mobile networks, personal data assistant, and many others in
the industry have generated promising outcomes
in providing strategically important information sources. Such information sources would
be increasingly used as business intelligence to
improve business performance. We are expecting
that novel business models would be inspired by
such technological advancement to foster more
intelligent supply chains in the near future. This,
we believe, would demonstrate both the benefits
and challenges of the visibility, not only in the
industry, but also in everyones daily life.
rEFErEncEs
Bertolini, M., Bevilacqua, M., & Massini, R.
(2006). FMECA approach to product traceability in the food industry. Food Control, 17(2),
137-145.
Blackburn, J., & Scudder, G. (2003). Supply chain
strategies for perishable products: The case of
fresh produce (OGSM Working Paper No. 03-14),
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
BT Auto-ID Services (2005, September 22). RFID
for retail suppliers: Worldwide fruit case study.
BT Auto-ID Services Newsletter.
Caja, G. (2005). Electronic identification and molecular markers for improving the traceability of
livestock and meant. 4th Extension Period Report,
European Commission, The Fifth Framework
Programme, QLK1-CT-2001-02229. Retrieved
Krkkinen, M., & Holmstrm, J. (2002). Wireless product identification: enabler for handling
efficiency, customisation and information sharing.
Supply Chain Management: An International
Journal, 7(4), 246-247.
Karkkainen, M., Holmstrom, J., Framling, K. &
Artto, K. (2003). Inteliigent productsA step
towards a more effective project delivery chain.
Computers in Industry, 50, 141-151.
Kim, K. H., Song, J. Y., & Wang, K. H. (1997).
A negotiation based scheduling for items with
flexible process plans. Computer & Industrial
Engineering, 33(3-4), 785-788.
Jakobs, K., Pils, C., & Wallbaum, M. (2001).
Using the Internet in transport logisticsThe
example of a track & trace system (LNCS 2093,
pp. 194-203).
Krishnamurthy, S. (2002). Supply chain intelligence. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from http://
www.wipro.com
Krothapalli, N. K. C., & Deshmukh, A. V. (1999).
Design of negotiation protocols for multi-agent
manufacturing systems. International Journal of
Production Research, 37(7), 1601-1624.
Li, D., Kehoe, D., & Drake, P. (2006). Dynamic
planning with RFID in food supply chains. International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing
Technology, 30(9-10), 938-944.
Li, D., Tang, O., & OBrien, C. (2005b, July 31August 4). Dynamic pricing through AutoID-
Chapter XIII
An Ontology-Based Intelligent
System Model for Semantic
Information Processing
Mark Xu
University of Porstmouth, UK
Vincent Ong
University of Bedfordshire, UK
Yanqing Duan
University of Bedfordshire, UK
AbstrAct
In the context of increasing usage of intelligent agent and ontology technologies in business, this study
explores the ways of adopting these technologies to revitalize current executive information systems (EIS)
with a focus on semantic information scanning, filtering, and reporting/alerting. Executives perceptions
on an agent-based EIS are investigated through a focus group study in the UK, and the results are used
to inform the design of such a system. A visualization prototype has been developed to demonstrate the
main features of the system. This study presents a specific business domain for which ontology and intelligent agent technology could be applied to advance information processing for executives.
IntroductIon
Many executive information systems (EIS) failed
to provide strategic significant and meaningful
information to executives (Bussen & Myres,
1997; Rainer & Watson, 1995; Xu, Kaye, &
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
lItErAturE rEvIEW
Intelligent Agent technology
Agent technology has contributed to intelligent
systems development (Klusch, 2001). Intelligent
Information Agent
Research on software agents are looking into
ways to improve current information acquisition
and processing activities from distributed information sources. Information agents are emerged
as a major domain in intelligent software agent
technology. The goal of an information agent is
to perform the role of managing, manipulating,
or collating information from one or many different information sources through advanced
information acquisition and retrieval (Klusch
2001; Nwana 1996). Klusch (2001) defines an
information agent as one that can satisfy one or
more of the following requirements:
Information acquisition and management: The agent is capable of providing
transparent access to one or many heterogeneous information sources. It extracts,
monitors, filters, analyzes and updates
relevant information on behalf of its users
ontology extensions system (SHOE) (Luke, Spector, Rager, & Hendler, 1997). The limitation is that
they can only process Web pages that are annotated
with these HTML tags, and there is no agreement
upon a universally acceptable set of HTML tags.
XML is another mark-up language that provides
a text-based means to describe many different
kinds of data. XML is a much more adequate
means for knowledge representation, however,
it can represent only some semantic properties
through its syntactic structure.
Semantic-based text retrieval system has
advantages over keywords based, and syntacticbased text scanning system. Silvester et al. (1994)
introduced a machine aided indexing (MAI)
system used by National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) Centre for AeroSpace
Information, which is a semantic-based indexing
system. The MAI system is based on the use of
domain-specific terminology as suggested by
Melby (1990). This refers to words and phrases
that are not broad in their meanings but that have
domain-specific, semantically unambiguous, indexable concepts. These text words and phrases
S ugges ted
terms
W ords
not found
S orting
W ords
not found
B roken into
s trings
P os ting =
re-s earching
P os ting =
F ound ?
Y es
no meaning
P os ting =
thes aurus terms
No
saurus terms. Using domain specific terminologies to automate machine indexing is akin to the
ontology approach.
Ontology is key technology used to describe
the semantics of information exchange. Berners-Lee (2001) suggests that an ontology is a
document that describes a vocabulary of terms
for communication between humans and automated agents. The most often cited definition for
ontology is an explicit specification of a conceptualisation (Gruber, 1993). Nelson and Nelson
(2005) suggest that an ontology can be thought
of as a vocabulary (a set of words), a grammar
(the set of rules or combining words into larger
structures), and semantics (the meanings of the
words and the large structure) all defined within
a specific domain. Ontologies are useful because
they encourage the standardization of the terms
used to represent knowledge about a domain. In
the context of business information, it is possible
to have an executive ontology by which standard
terms and specific meaning are defined to guide
machine scanning and filtering. In addition,
source documents provided to executives can be
annotated by using ontology-annotation tools.
In this way, machines are able to understand the
meaningssemantics of the documents. Various
ontology tools have been developed for building
semantic data on the Web (Barros, Goncalves &
Santos, 1998; Erdmann & Studer, 2001), and for
digital library (Shum, Motta, & Domingue, 2000),
but ontology specific to the domain of executive
information processing have yet been developed,
except a recent proposal (Camponovo, Ondrus
& Pigneur, 2005) of an ontology for environment scanning that sheds some lights on this yet
exploited area.
In summary, it appears that intelligent agents
and ontology have the potential to advance executive information processing through automatic,
semantic information scanning, refining, and
sense making of data. The methodological set-
0
MEthodology
The methodological design consists two phases:
the first phase is to examine executives perceptions on using agent based EIS through a focus
group study. The second phase is to develop an
agent-base EIS visualization prototype on the Web
in order to demonstrate the main features of such
a system. The first phase involves a focus group
study with 41 middle towards top-level managers
in the U.K. The size of the focus group is about
10 persons per group. Each session begins with a
brief statement on the purpose of the focus group,
the confidentiality and ground rules for the discussion, that is, one participant talks at a time. The
discussion questions, the related concepts and the
use of software agents are also introduced prior
to the discussion. Each focus group session took
between 45 minutes to 1 hour to complete. Data
is initially organized into meaningful themes according to predefined or newly emerging themes
and categories. Thematic qualitative analysis
(TQA) (Nicholas & Anderson, 2003) is used to
conduct a detailed interpretive conceptual analysis and mapping. Meanings were sought from
the transcripts to identify consensus, dilemmas,
and contradictions. Selected quotes are directly
presented as evidence.
In the second phase, an ontology driven intelligent system model and a visualisation prototype
is designed to demonstrate the main features of the
system for semantic information processing. The
visualization prototype serves as a demonstration
tool, rather than a tool for technological testing
or implementation.
Findings
1.
4.
I have extreme concern about that interpretation function; I believe interpretation should
be done by executive I think it has to be a low
level interpretation first; certainly for me, I
interpret the data myself.
5.
this system would actually limit the development of senior executives.; the concern
is this limiting development kept coming
back to me.; becoming more and more
dependent on the software and not thinking
for themselves, reducing creativity.; My
another concern is probably people would
completely start depending on the system
rather than using their own brain.;sitting in front of computer, limit the creativity,
losing the skills
6.
An ontology drIvEn
IntEllIgEnt EIs ModEl
And prototypE
The key features of an ontology driven intelligent
EIS can be summarised as below:
Systematic scanning of information from
multiple internal and external sources.
The scanning engine incorporates executive ontology, and/or semantic indexing to
ensure relevant information being widely
scanned.
Semantically filtering information to the
level that the executives like to receive. The
filter shall be driven by learning agents that
filter out irrelevant information according
to user profile, criteria defined by the user,
user feedback, case based reasoning, and
knowledge base.
Automatic categorizing, ranking, prioritizing items according to its significance,
and alerting significant news/unsolicited/
unexpected information to the executives.
Limited interpretation and recommendation
can be offered as an advanced function.
Intelligent agents perform these tasks according to user profile, user feedback and
coaching, and agents learn from cases and
examples.
The system will integrate tools that support
intelligence disseminating and sharing, allowing executives to manipulate informa-
cases-based reasoning
user profile
Alerting Agent
Executive ontology
ontology annotation
semantic indexing
thesaurus
External info
Internal info
Scan agents
Filter agents
Alert
recommendation
Feedback
Feedback
IMplIcAtIon
The applications of software agents and ontology
for semantic information processing are still in
its infantry, particularly in the domain of executive information processing. The implications of
this study are: firstly, the domain specific issues
concerning executive information processing are
revealed, which shed light on future development
of agent-based EIS and other systems related to
executives information acquisition and processing. Secondly, this study takes an innovative step
to explore the possibility of applying ontologies
to agent-based EIS for the purpose of semantic
information scanning and processing. Although
such an executive ontology has not yet been
developed within this study, the novelty of this
exploration is expected to generate more interests
and efforts in developing and applying ontology in
the domain of executive support system. Thirdly,
the Web-based interface prototype sets an example
that could stimulate ontology and intelligent
system developers to develop system solutions
related to the work of executive information
processing. Lastly, developing and implementing
an agent-based EIS and executive ontology need
executives participation and support, for example
executives annotate information received and give
feedback. Considerations also need to be given
to nontechnical issues such as cost, impact on
managerial work, culture changes, and security
of information.
conclusIon
Our study explored the opportunities of applying
agent and ontology technologies in the domain of
executive information processing, and revealed
executives perceptions towards developing an
ontology-driven intelligent executive information
system. Many executives perceive such a system
useful by particularly using the system for semantic information scanning, filtering, and alerting as
well as advanced executive decision analysis and
support. However, the capability of this type of
system shall not be exaggerated, as executives see
it as only a useful supplementary tool. Executives
tend to make sense of data (interpretation) and
make intuitive decisions themselves. Executives
also need a manageable amount of significant
information from EIS. This implies that an agentbased EIS shall be able to selectively and semantically scan and filter information and report only
significant information to executives.
The technological challenges rest on machine
learning for semantic information scanning and
processing. A range of tools for semantic information processing are available, but these tools are
not yet used for executive information processing. In particular, executive ontology has not yet
been considered as a potential tool to advance
EIS design. The integration of intelligent and
ontology offers great potential to revitalize EIS.
Its realization however, relies on the development
of functionality of the information agents, the
executive ontology, and an environment that can
facilitate agent learning.
Future studies can be carried out to address
some of the limitations of this study in three
directions, firstly, to develop executive ontology
that is specific to industry sector and individual
executive. Secondly, to continue developing a
fully functional Web-based prototype/system that
incorporates intelligent information agent and
executive ontology with an emphasis on semantic strategic information scanning, filtering, and
rEFErEncEs
Barros, F., Goncalves, P., & Santos, T. (1998).
Providing context to Web searches: The use of
ontologies to enhance search engines accuracy.
Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society, 5(2),
45-55.
Koh, C. E., & Watson, H. J. (1998). Data management in executive information systems. Information & Management, 33, 301-312.
Demazeau & Muller. (1990). Decentralised artificial intelligence. In Demazeau and Muller (Eds.),
In Decentralised A.I.Proceedings of the First
European Workshop on Modelling Autonomous
Agents in a Multi-Agent World. North-Holland
Press.
Liu, S. (1998a). Strategic scanning and interpretation revisiting: Foundations for a software agent
support systemPart 1. Industrial Management
& Data Systems, 7, 295-312.
Liu, S. (1998b). Strategic scanning and interpretation revisiting: Foundations for a software agent
support systemPart 2. Industrial Management
& Data Systems, 7, 362-372.
Lu, S., Dong, M., & Fotouhi, F. (2003). The semantic Web: Opportunities and challenges for
next-generation Web application. Wayne State
University, Detroit, MI.
0
241
Chapter XIV
Bibliometry Technique
and Software for Patent
Intelligence Mining
Henri Dou
ESCEM Tours Poities and University Paul Czanne, France
Jean-Marie Dou
Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Marseille Provence CCIMP, France
Abstract
This chapter introduces the bibliometry treatment techniques as a way to obtain elaborated information
for competitive intelligence experts. It presents various bibliometry treatments using software able to
analyze patent databases as well as commercial database extracts or Web information. With the growing complexity of science, technology, and economy it is of a prime importance for decision makers and
strategists to have the best possible view of their environment. The bibliometry analysis provides different ways to cross information, build lists, charts, matrices, and networks. In the process of knowledge
creation the bibliometry analysis can be used to provide new set of information from large mount of data.
This information can be used for brain storming, SWOT analysis, and expert evaluation.
Introduction
The amount of technical and scientific information is growing exponentially in the information
and knowledge age. The very rapid growth of the
information available has been seen in almost all
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
242
Functionalities of
Bibliometry Technology
An overview of bibliometry techniques is available
from the work presented by the CRPHT (Public
Center of Research Henri Tudor) (Dubois, 2004):
Bibliometry is the application of mathematics
and statistical methods to bibliographic references (White, 1989). The bibliometry is different of bibliometrics which is strongly related to
library and documentation studies as well as to
citation analysis. In this chapter the bibliometry
technique provide a way to see the hidden information present in large amounts of data (e.g.,
formatted references) by using statistical methods.
Questions such as, Who is doing what?, Where?,
With whom? What are the main research trends?,
What are the key institutions and their research
potential?, What are the institutions which collaborate together?, What are the new actors in one
field?, What is or are the network(s) of competencies involved in one subject?, and so forth can
be answered promptly.
Bibliometrics are mainly used to measure
the science level of publications or to rank some
scientific journals with the determination of their
impact factors, and so forth. One database the
Science Citation Index is widely used to measure
the impact and trend of science research (Moed,
2005). The field of bibliometry applications is
different and can be apply to almost all subjects
if there are formatted data available in this field.
This is the reason why people use sometimes the
general term: data mining (which is applied to
full text data most of the time) when they speak
of bibliometry.
Many other descriptive fields can be generated according to the depth of indexation of the
article. It is important to note that the good quality
of indexation will benefit bibliometry analysis,
however, this is often related to time and cost of
creating the indexation.
Networks: Represent almost the same results as the matrix, but their visual impact
is very different. Many people prefer this
presentation to the matrix presentation. The
networks are useful to represent the intra
field correlations. For instance if you want
to see the network of people who collaborate
inside one area, you will build the authors
networks. This means that when several
authors/inventors are present in one reference (in the author/inventors field), they have
an implicit link because they appear in the
same data. Here for instance H and K have
a link. But, if author H publishes in another
paper with author F, the links created will
be H-K, H-F and also K-F since H and K
have a link. This is called the propagation
networks. The same is true to determine the
core technologies or to direct the potential
innovations. In this case inter-field networks
between code fields of key-words fields will
be done.
Time series: This enable the combination
between the publication year (here the
field PY) with the data from the code field
selected, it will produce a time series or the
frequency of each code according to the year
of publication/invention.
ExAMplEs oF bIblIoMEtry
tEchnIQuE ApplIcAtIons
As indicated the best bibliometry treatments shall
be done on formatted information. This has different implications to the institutions and companies
because using commercial and formatted data
source often has a cost. However, it is possible
to carry out bibliometry studies with free access
formatted databases or free accessible data sources
(for instance from the Internet).
The free access databases are generally scarce
because of the cost. In the fields of science and
technology, the EPO database (2006) (European
Patent Office Database) and the USPO database
(2006) (U.S. Patent Organization) Database are
free and are appropriate for Competitive Intelligence mining. Other free access databases include for instance The Medline (2006), PASCAL
(2006) Database from the CNRS (French National
Research Centre). Some databases provided by
laboratories or research centers as well as from
international organizations are also available
mainly through the Internet. We advise the users
interested in bibliometry analysis to do a careful
Figure 1. Main screen of the search performed with the name ADIDAS as applicant
Figure 3. Histogram of the applicants which appear during the search with the term ADIDAS in the
applicant field (threshold frequencies may be selected if necessary
Figure 4. Network of the applicants (the potentiometers in the bottom part of the screen allow to select
the frequency of the applicants or of the links between applicants)
When two or more applicants appear simultaneously in the same patent, this means that they
have a link between each other. An applicant can
appear alone in a patent or can also appear in another patent with other applicants. The frequency
of the applicants (alone or with other applicants
in various patents) is given in the square box,
and the frequency of the links is given in the
circle (when this applicant appears in a patent
with another applicant). The number in the circle
shows the number of patents two applicants have
in common.
In the example below we made a matrix between applicants and IPC (4 digits). The full IPC
may also be used if more precision is necessary.
The result is a rapid benchmarking of the various companies involved. It is presented below.
With this type of matrix you can get at a glance
the complementarities. This matrix is a map of
patent portfolio. The matrix can be compared to
other matrix involving other companies. This
will provide a fast and automatic benchmarking
of these companies This approach can be also
combined with the creation of metagroups, for
instance the Adidas group, the Z group, and so
forth, as we saw in the former paragraph.
Multicriteria Matrices
0
Networks (Mapping)
reference and its links with other information taken in the same fields
Asymmetrical Networks These networks
represent co-occurrences with two different
fields. See also matrix
clustering
Exporting Data
Figure 6. The field selected, the selection of a group of authors and the constitution of a group
Figure 11. Access to the file in html format (drawing and photographs are not downloaded to save
time and space. But if the user wants to consult the data a direct link to the original URL on the Web
is provided)
Figure 12. Histogram of the Internet domains available from the addresses of the pages
Figure 13. Network of the above domains with the e-mail extracted from the various downloaded
pages
Figure 14. Matrix of downloaded hosts (line) vs. external hosts (columns)
Free databases
from Internet
Matheo-Patent
Matheo-Pharma
Local
Databases
Bibliometric
Analysis
Export
Selection from
Internet by a software
such as Temis
Internet data
Reformatting
steps
Matheo-Analyzer
conclusIon
In the presentation of the book The Secret Language of Competitive Intelligence (Fuld, 2006),
two chapters Seeing the Threes to understand
the Forest and Seeing Through the Confusion
to Gather Intelligence Gems underline that
understanding the links between information is
one of the most important aspect of intelligence.
Speaking of the same book, Robert Crandall
(2006) retired CEO of American Airlines says
One of the most importantand toughestjobs
of a manager is seeing through the competition:
understanding the strategy, cost structure and
pricing models of the companies that you bump
up against in the marketplace. Leonard Fulds
new book offers approaches and insights into
solving a problem which bedevils managers at
every level.
This shows clearly that understanding our
environment is among the most important step of
intelligence. But, to understand this environment
it is necessary to gather the right information and
also to get and understand the hidden information that bibliometry analysis can provide.
The analytical tools and the databases available
(academics or patents or home made), provide
the facilities necessary to place a subject in a
global arena. Intelligence means the knowledge
of the environment of all the items necessary to
provide the facility to create or expand human
activities. Then to be able to have rapidly the
knowledge of the environment of people, ideas,
companies, institutions, is a key step in competitive Intelligence.
Most of the people engaged in intelligence
units need to be permanently informed upon all
the activities which will help the decision makers
to take the best decision. If years ago, the storage of information and their retrieval were the
ultimate tools, today the amount of information
available prompt various researchers, companies,
It must be also pointed out that most of institutions and companies develop their own homemade
databases. Very often the databases are developed
to provide direct answer to the direct functions
of the institutions and companies (customers,
competitors, etc.), but if you think to all the type
of correlations which can be done by the bibliometric treatments, you will be able to implement
the coverage of the databases in such a way that
useful hidden correlations will be available bit
by bit as the amount of data will increase into
the database.
rEFErEncEs
Ban, Y.-B. (2004). NanoTrends and prospects
based on patent analysis. Korean Intellectual
Property Office(KIPO), NanoKorea Symposiun.
Retrieved January 6, 2007 from http://infosys.korea.ac.kr/ippage/p/ipdata/2000/10/file/p20001011901.pdf
Bradford, S. C. (1934). Sources of information on
specific subjects. Engineering, 137, 85-86.
Brander, R. (2006). History and structure of the
Internet. Canadian Society of Civil Engineers.
Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://www.cuug.
ab.ca/~branderr/csce/Ihistory.html
Branderburger, A. & Nalebuff, B. J. (1996). Coopetition. Currency double-day. ClearResearch.
Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://www.
clearforest.com
Crandall, R. (2006). In Random House Inc.
Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://www.
randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9
780609610893&view=quotes
Dialog. (2006). The Dialog bluesheets. Retrieved
January 6, 2007, from http://library.dialog.com/
bluesheets/html/bls.html)
IRIT. (2006). The visualization of Tetralogie results. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://atlas.
irit.fr/petitexemple.html
Dou, H. (in press). A rapid analysis of avian influenza patents in the Esp@cenet database R&D
strategies and country comparisons. World Patent
Information.
Dou, H., Leveill, V., Manullang, S., & Dou J.M., Jr. (2005). Patent analysis for competitive
technical intelligence and innovative thinking.
Data Science Journal, 4, 209-236
Dou, H., & Hassanaly, P. (1998). Chemistry. In A.
Large & C. Armstrong (Eds.), A manual of online
search strategy. Gower Publishing Company.
Dubois, C. (2004). Automatic patent analysis.
In Proceedings of the Patlib 2004 Workshop
B,Vilamoura. Retrieved January 6, 2007,
from http://patlib.european-patent-office.org/
events/2004/download/workshops/ws_b_dubois.
pdf#search=%22dubois%20%22automatic%20p
atent%20analysis%22%22
EPO. (2006). European Patent Organization. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://ep.espacenet.
com/search97cgi/s97_cgi.exe?Action=FormGen
&Template=ep/EN/home.hts
Faucompr, P., Quoniam, L. & Rostaing., H.
(1997). Un lien automatique entre recherche
scientifique et technologique. Humanisme et
Entreprise, 222, 33-43.
Fuld, L. (2006). The secret language of competitive intelligence. UK: Random House.
IMCS. (2006). Information management consulting and solution. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from
http://www.imcsline.com
0
Micro patent
MicroPatent (2006) is the worlds leading source for online patent and trademark information. Combining advanced technology with the most comprehensive, up-to-date IP information, MicroPatent delivers
a complete intellectual property solutionwhether it is online searching, document delivery, patent
analysis, file histories, or professional search assistance.
MicroPatent is the first company to provide patent information on CD-ROM and over the Internet,
houses the worlds largest commercial collection of searchable full-text patent data, including data from
the United States, Europe, Germany, Great Britain, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and
Japan. MicroPatent also has AOS, a highly regarded patent analysis and collaboration service in the
intellectual property industry, featuring ThemeScape concept maps, text clustering, citation trees,
and citation reporting.
ClearForests ClearResearch product (ClearResearch, 2006) complements MicroPatents data and the
functionality available within AOS. ClearResearch automates the initial analysis of a document set by
crunching patent information into a database repository file (DRF), creating a taxonomy of terms and
thesaurus of synonyms so it can be viewed various ways, shedding immediate light on the competitive
landscape. Category, context, trend, and star maps, in addition to trend graphs, taxonomy and synonym
editors, and special filters, further enhance the analysis, refining the document set before the option to
round-trip back into AOS to complete the review.
Patent LabII
There are various types of analysis can be engaged by the Patent-Lab II for patent analysis. After
completion of the required analysis, the Patent-Lab II software allows users to select numerous types of
output formats, such as Matrix Chart, Report, and so forth. If Matrix Chart is selected, user then needs
to choose the field contents for the row and column following the options (Khong Poh, 2003):
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Overall Summary
Assignee Summary
Assignee Detail
Patent Classification
Country Summary (see Figure A.2)
A.4 Ttralogie
Tetralogie (2006) provides a method which helps to find out a list of items used to sort out a set of
strategic indicators. The items are extracted from the first data according to certain rules. These rules
263
take into account the nature of the data base which the information came from, by using the data base
specification. To preprocess the first data, Tetralogie uses its own techniques to count items and to cross
them in order to obtain contingency tables, disjunctive tables and multiway tables. Then Tetralogie uses
methods of treatment to handle those tables, especially methods from Factorial data analysis, cluster
analysis and multiway data analysis. Tetralogie also uses common statistics methods. A supervisor
tool collects all the results of the pre-treatments and the treatments. This tool can give at any moment
a commented abstract of the results of all the analyses and pretreatments performed since the beginning of the study. This report can be used to generate conclusions and to make decisions. In Tetralogie,
the interpretation phase is based on the report we talked about, on graphics visualization, on artificial
intelligence, especially knowledge acquisition and on intermethod communication. First full-text data
related to any specific item are always accessible from any Tetralogie tool, which provides an easy
way to have a kind of feed back helpful to correct wrong or weak conclusions. Of course the last phase
needs no tool, for every one has to generate its own conclusions and decisions by their own means. The
interpretation phase tools help to do this.
The visualization methods (IRIT, 2006) are used to ease the interpretation of treatment and pretreatment results. It constitutes a kind of interface between mathematical results and the user. In addition to classical histograms and full text visualization, (Mothe, Dkaki & Dousset, 1998) Tetralogie
proposes a new method for factorial space visualization. So, instead of producing the traditional and
static two-dimensional factorial spaces, Tetralogie provides an interactive visualization system of fourdimensional spaces.
dataview
Dataview (more information can be obtained from Rostaing (2006), was about 20 years ago, a precursor in automatic formatted data treatments. The possibilities offered by Dataview is interesting to
note because they list most of the bibliometry treatments. Most of them have now be introduced in the
Matheo-Analyzer software.
When the user introduced into the software the necessary descriptive parameters, it executes the
encoding process. This step makes an inventory of the whole forms existing in the references set
(Faucompr, 1997). This encoding process also draws up the bibliometric data for these forms:
The user can select the set of forms which will be concerned during the distributions edition. This
set is chosen according to rank frequency intervals, according to field belonging, and according to mask
retrieval. In the same way, column and raw headers are chosen by the user. Therefore, the user can
allocate the forms, which seems to th user to contain relevant interactions, to the two dimensions of the
matrix. This facility to select and allocate forms allows the user to built up as well classical bibliometric
matrices as the users customized bibliometric matrices.
vantagepoint
VantagePoint (2006). Developed through a strategic alliance between Georgia Tech and Atlanta-based
Search Technology Inc., VantagePoint allows technical-intelligence managers to quickly analyze search
results from bibliographic databases and R&D literature. The text-mining tool produces summaries,
charts and graphs that help people spot patterns and relationships in massive amounts of data, enabling
them to extract relevant information and make better decisions.
Competitive technical intelligence is the name of the game, says Alan Porter (2005), a Georgia Tech
professor of industrial and systems engineering and public policy. He developed the technology that
resulted in VantagePoint.
Today its critical to have the right technology at the right time, Porter explains. Companies want
to keep an eye on competitors so they dont drop the ball by introducing a new product or technology
too late. For example, Ford looks to see what is published by and about Toyotaand more important,
what its patenting, because that shows what Toyota is really interested in.
In addition to staying a step ahead of rivals, VantagePoint also assists with technology management
and R&D efforts by helping:
Identify what inventors are up to, along with the organizations sponsoring their researchinformation that can lead to potential mergers or acquisitions
Digimind (2006) The 2nd generation surveillance technologies developed by Digimind mean that
unstructured data can be scanned automatically, no matter the type of electronic source (Web, invisible
Web, discussion forums, newsletters, Weblogs.), and whatever the format (html, pdf, doc, ppt, xls, ps.),
or language (even those using other characters such as Chinese, Japanese, Arab, or Russian).Result: a
single query can be used to monitor all types of heterogeneous sourcesno specific technical knowledge
requiredand the identified news items are presented in a standardized newsthread (title, automatic
summary, extracted news, link towards the original document): a user-friendly report for further work
by analysts and experts.
kb crawl
KB Crawl (2006) has an intermediate positioning vis--vis the large platforms and vis--vis of more
economic, but more limited or less robust tolls. Its functionalities place it in the top-of-the-range
one for the monitoring of Web sources. It makes it possible to supervise the changes on pages or Web
sites, by announcing these changes to the level of the software (very good visualization of the type of
changes), or by e-mail, with filters by key words. The frequency of monitoring of a catalog (according to the terminology of the editor) is configurable, knowing that the tool repatriates on average 50
pages per minute. All in all, the functionalities suggested make it possible to answer a very demanding
parameter setting (black-lists, all types of forms, login, parameters of transfer, URL exclusive, etc.). The
repatriated contents are stored in a database (Interbase). KB Crawl can function according to two types
of configurations: into single-user (the software is then installed with its database on the same station;
into multipost (the bdd is installed on a server, allowing an operation in network and the division of the
watches and data). A robust search engine is integrated into KB Crawl and makes it possible to find
the pages answering requests by key words. As for export, it is done from now on a function ad hoc,
which allows the possible interfacing with possible applications of machine analysis of data (textmining, cartographies).
rEFErEncEs
ClearResearch. (2006). Description of the ClearResearch products. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from
http://www.clearforest.com
Digimind. (2006). The Digimind global process. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://www.digimind.
com/en/company/news/scip_dcif_2005.htm and http://www.digimind.com/en/products/index.htm
Faucompr, P., Quoniam, L., & Rostaing., H. (1997). Un lien automatique entre recherche scientifique
et technologique. Humanisme et Entreprise, (222), 33-43
IRIT. (2006). The visualization of Tetralogie results. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://atlas.irit.
fr/petitexemple.html
KBCrawl. (2006). The KBCrawl platform. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://fichiers.aidel.com/
partenaires/BEAConseil/Fiche_KBCRAWL2.5.pdf and http://www.kbcrawl.net
Khong Poh, W. (2003). Patent technology for competitive intelligence. International Journal of The
Computer, The Internet and Management, 11, 52-64
Micropatent. (2006). Description of Micropatent. Retrieved, January 6, 2007, from http://www.micropat.
com
Rostaing, H. (2006). Dataview description. Retrieved January 6, 2007 from http://www.crrm.u-3mrs.
fr
0
Compiled References
Ananthanarayan, S. (2002). Data warehousing & business intelligence: Unleash the power of your data. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from http://www.dmreview.
com/whitepaper/WID422.pdf
Ansoff, H. I., & McDonell, E. J. (1990). Implanting
strategic management (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Antonioletti, M., Atkinson, M. P., Baxter, R., Borley,
A., Chue Hong, N. P., Collins, B., et al. (2005). The
design and implementation of grid database services in
OGSA-DAI. Concurrency and Computation: Practice
and Experience, 7(2-4), 357-376.
Arcas, M. J., & Rees, W. P. (1999). Regularities in the equity price response to earnings announcements in Spain.
The European Accounting Review, 8(4), 585-607.
Argyris, C. (1990). Overcoming organizational defenses:
Facilitating organizational learning. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Argyris, C. & Schon, D. (1996). Organizational learning IITheory, method and practice. Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley
Ashby, W. R. (1956). An introduction to cybernetics.
London: Methuen.
Asimakopoulou, E., Anumba, C. J. & Bouchlaghem, D.
(2005). Studies of emergency management procedures
in Greece, Italy and the UK. In Proceedings of the 3rd
International Conference on Construction in the 21st
century, Advancing Engineering, Management & Technology, Athens, Greece (pp.15-17).
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Compiled References
Atkinson, M., DcRoure, D., Dunlop, A., Fox, G., Henderson, P., Hey, T., et al. (2005). Web service grids: An
evolutionary approach. Retrieved January 5, 2007,
from http://www.nesc.ac.uk/technical_papers/UkeS2004-05.pdf
Auster, E., & Choo, C. (1994). How senior managers
acquire and use information in environment scanning. Information Processing & Management, 30(5), 607-618.
Auster, E., & Choo, C. W. (1994). CEOs, information, and
decision making: Scanning the environment for strategic
advantage. Library Trends, 43(2), 206-225.
Averweg, U. R. (2002). Executive information systems
usage: The impact of Web-based technologies.Unpublished Master of Science dissertation, University of Natal,
Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
Averweg, U., Erwin, G., & Petkov, D. (2005, March).
Survey of executive information systems in well established organizations in Kwa-Zulu Natal. South African
Journal of Information Management, 7(1).
Baatz, E. (1994, September). The quest for corporate
smarts. CIO, pp. 48-51.
Babu, M. (2005). Business intelligence: Into the mind of
the customer. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from http://
www.expressitpeople.com/20030331/abroad1.shtml
Bajwa, D. S., Rai, D., & Brennan, I. (1998). Key antecedents of executive information system success:
A path analytic approach. Decision Support System,
22(1), 31-43.
Baker, M. (1996). Marketing strategy. In M. Warner. (Ed.),
International encyclopaedia of business and management (pp. 3333-3347). London: Routledge.
Balabanovic, M., & Shoham, Y. (1997). Content-based,
collaborative recommendation. Communications of the
ACM, 40(3), 66-72.
Ban, Y.-B. (2004). NanoTrends and prospects based
on patent analysis. Korean Intellectual Property
Office(KIPO), NanoKorea Symposiun. Retrieved January 6, 2007 from http://infosys.korea.ac.kr/ippage/p/ipdata/2000/10/file/p200010-11901.pdf
Compiled References
Belkin, N. J., Cool, C., Koenemann, J., Bor Ng, K., &
Park, S. Y. (1996). Using relevance feedback and ranking
in interactive searching. In Proceedings of the Fourth
Text Retrieval Conference, 181-210.
Compiled References
Brouard, F. (2004). Dveloppement dun outil diagnostique des pratiques existantes de la veille stratgique
auprs des PME. Doctoral thesis, Universit du Qubec
Trois-Rivires.
Brouard, F. (2004). Dveloppement dun outil diagnostique des pratiques de veille stratgique des PME, In Proceedings/Actes du 7e Congrs international francophone
sur la PME (CIFEPME 2004), Montpellier, France.
Brouard, F. (2005). Cration dun outil diagnostique
pour les PME et dveloppement du savoir. In Proceedings/Actes du Congrs de lAssociation des sciences
administratives du Canada (ASAC), 26(21), Toronto,
Canada (pp. 116-131).
Brouard, F. (2006). Development of an expert system on
environmental scanning practices in small and medium
sized entitites. In Proceedings SCIP International Annual
Conference & Exhibition, Orlando, Florida.
Brunson, D. (2005). Top 10 trends in business intelligence
and data warehousing for 2005 revisited. Retrieved
December 29, 2006, from http://www.b-eye-network.
com/view/969
BT Auto-ID Services (2005, September 22). RFID for
retail suppliers: Worldwide fruit case study. BT Auto-ID
Services Newsletter.
Budzik, J., Bradshaw, S., Fu, X., & Hammond, K. (2002).
Supporting online resource Dsiscovery in the context
of ongoing tasks with proactive software assistants.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,
56(1), 47-74.
Bulinge, F. (2002). Pour une culture de linformation
dans les petites et moyennes organisations: un modle
incrmental dintelligence conomique. Doctoral thesis,
Universit de Toulon et du Var, Toulon.
Burke, M. E. (1995). Sources of UK business information: Knowing where to find relevant information is vital
for todays business manager. Management Decision,
33(5), 33-43.
Bussen, W., & Myers, M. D. (1997). Executive information system failure: A New Zealand case study. Journal
of Information Technology, 12(2), 145-153.
Byars, L. L. (1987). Strategic management: Planning
and implementation; Concepts and cases. New York:
Harper & Row.
Cady, J. F. (1984). Strategic marketing management:
The course (Paper No. 9-584-076). Boston: Harvard
Business School.
Caja, G. (2005). Electronic identification and molecular
markers for improving the traceability of livestock and
meant. 4th Extension Period Report, European Commission, The Fifth Framework Programme, QLK1-CT-200102229. Retrieved April 17, 2007, from http://www.quiro.
uab.es/tracing/Index_Eng.html.
Calof, J. (2004). Getting real value from trade shows.
Executive Magazine, 1, 11-15.
Calvanese, D., Giacomo, G. & Lenzerini, M. (1998).
Information integration: Conceptual modelling and
reasoning support. In Proceedings of the CoopIS98.
Camponovo, G., Ondrus, J., & Pigneur, Y. (2005).
Environmental context significance in strategic decision support systems. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from
http://www.hec.unil.ch/gcampono/publications
Carbonnier, J. P. (2005). BNP paribas bolsters grid
project. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from http://www.data-
Compiled References
synapse.com/pdf/DWT_BNP_Paribas_Bolsters_Grid_
Project _05_3005.pdf
Carlsson, S., & Kalling, T. (2006). Decision support
through knowledge management: What works and
what breaks. In F. Adam, P. Brezillon, S. Carlsson, & P.
Humphreys (Eds.), Creativity and innovation in decision making and decision support. London: Decision
Support Press.
Carlsson, & P. Humphreys (Eds), Creativity and innovation in decision making and decision support. London:
Decision Support Press.
Carlsson, S. A. (2001). DSS developed by managers:
What is really supported? Journal of Decision Systems,
10(2), 217-240.
Carlsson, S. A., & Widmeyer, G. R. (1990). Towards
a theory of executive information systems. In V. Milutinovic & L. W. Hoevel (Eds.), In Proceedings of the
Twenty-third Annual Hawaii International Conference
on System Sciences (HICSS-23), HI (pp. 195-201). Los
Alamitos, CA.
Carvalho, J. A. (1998). Using the viable system model
to describe the role of computer-based systems in
organizations. In N. Callaos, L. Holmes, & R. Osers
(Eds.), In Proceedings of the World Multiconference
on Systems, Cybernetics and Informatics (pp. 497-502),
Orlando, FL.
Castro-Leon, E. & Munter, J. (2005) Grid computing:
Looking forward part 1: Technology overview. Intel
White Paper. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from http://www.
intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmona /eng/202676.htm
Cavalcanti, E. P. (2005). The relationship between
business intelligence and business success. Journal of
Competitive Intelligence and Management, 3(1).
Chadbourne, A. (2005). M&S foods case study. In Proceedings of the Workshop on RFID Applications to the
Food Industry, Intellident Case Study. Retrieved January
5, 2007, from http://www.intellident.co.uk
Compiled References
Compiled References
Digimind. (2006). The Digimind global process. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://www.digimind.
com/en/company/news/scip_dcif_2005.htm and http://
www.digimind.com/en/products/index.htm
Dorr, B. (1988). A lexical conceptual approach to generation for machine translation (NTIS No. AD-A197356).
Arlington, VA: Office of Naval Research.
Dou, H. (in press). A rapid analysis of avian influenza
patents in the Esp@cenet database R&D strategies and
country comparisons. World Patent Information.
Dou, H., & Hassanaly, P. (1998). Chemistry. In A. Large &
C. Armstrong (Eds.), A manual of online search strategy.
Gower Publishing Company.
Dou, H., Leveill, V., Manullang, S., & Dou J.-M., Jr.
(2005). Patent analysis for competitive technical intelligence and innovative thinking. Data Science Journal,
4, 209-236
Dubois, C. (2004). Automatic patent analysis. In Proceedings of the Patlib 2004 Workshop B,Vilamoura.
Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://patlib.europeanpatent-office.org/events/2004/download/workshops/
ws_b_dubois.pdf#search=%22dubois%20%22automat
ic%20patent%20analysis%22%22
EAN International. (2003). EANUCC traceability implementation. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from http://www.
ean-int.org/
Eccles, R. G. (1991). The performance measurement
manifesto. Harvard Business Review, 69(2), 2-8.
Edwards, C., & Peppard, J. (1993). A taxonomy of executive information systems: Let the 4 Cs penetrate the
fog. Information Management & Computer Security,
1(2), 4-10.
Edwards, J. S., & Finlay, P. N. (1997). Decision making
with computers: The spreadsheet and beyond. Pitman
Publishing.
Eells, R., & Nehemkis, P. (1984). Corporate intelligence
and espionage: A blueprint for executive decision making.
New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
Compiled References
Elenkov, D. S. (1997). Strategic uncertainty and environmental scanning: The case for institutional influences
on scanning behavior. Strategic Management Journal,
18(4), 287-302.
Compiled References
Forcheri, P., & Gentilini, P. (2005). Paraconsistent informational logic. Journal of Applied Logic, 3(1), 97-118.
Forgionne, G. A. (2003). An architecture for the integration of decision making support functionalities. In G. A.
Forgionne, J. N. D. Gupta, & M. Mora (Eds.), Decision
making support systems: Achievements and challenges
for the new decade (pp. 1-19). Hershey, PA: Idea Group
Publishing.
Forsdick, G. (1995). The management of complexity in
the oil and chemical industry. Unpublished MBA dissertation, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg,
South Africa.
Foster, I. (2002, July 22). What is the grid? A three point
checklist. Grid Today, 1(6). Retrieved January, from
http://www.gridtoday.com/ 02/0722/100136.html
Foster, I., Kesselman, C., Nick, J. M. & Tuecke, S. (2002,
June 22). The physiology of the grid: An open grid services architecture for distributed systems integration.
Retrieved January 5, 2007, from http://www.globus.
org/alliance/publications /papers/ogsa.pdf
Foster, I., Kesselman, C. & Tuecke, S. (2001). The anatomy
of the Grid: Enabling scalable virtual organisations.
International Journal of Supercomputer Applications,
15(3).
Fox, G. & Walker, D. (2003). E-science gap analysis.
Cardiff University. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from
http://grids.ucs.indiana.edu/ptliupages/publications/Gap
Analysis30June03v2.pdf
Francq, A. (2001). The use of counterintelligence, security, and countermeasures. In C. S. Fleisher & D. L.
Blenkhorn (Eds.), Managing frontiers in competitive
intelligence (pp. 40-50). Westport: Quorum Books.
Friedman, G., Friedman, M., Chapman, C., & Baker,
J. S. (1997). The intelligence edge: How to profit in the
information age. London: Century Business.
Friend, D. (1992). Building an EIS your CFO will really
use. Chief Information Officer Journal, 5(1), 32-36.
Compiled References
Grove, R. F. (2000). Design and development of knowledge-based systems on the Web. In Proceedings of ISCA
2000: Ninth International Conference on Intelligent
Systems: Artificial Intelligence Applications for the New
Millennium, Louisville, KY (pp. 147-150).
Golan, E., Krissoff, B., Kuchler, F., Calvin, L., Nelson, K.,
& Price, G. (2004). Traceability in the U.S. food supply:
Economic theory and industry studies. USDA/Economic
Research Service, AER-830.
Gmez Sala, J. C. (2001). Rentabilidad y Liquidez alrededor de la Fecha de Desdoblamiento de las Acciones.
Investigaciones Econmicas, 25(1), 171-202.
Gmez Sala, J. C., Marhuenda, J., & Ms, F. J. (1993). La
Estructura de Dependencia del Precio de las Acciones
en la Identificacin de Grupos Estratgicos: Aplicacin
al Sector Bancario Espaol (Working paper No. WPEC 93-03). Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones
Econmicas.
Gonzales, M. L. (2003). Enterprise data quality for business intelligence. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from
http://www.teradata.com/t/page/113002/
Gopal, R., & Tung, Y. (1999). An examination of the role
of Internet technologies in developing next generation
EIS. Journal of CIS, 39(3), 81-91.
Goyal, V. (2005, April 4). The promise of grid computing.
Message posted to gridcomputing@yahoogroups.com
Green, C., & Dhillon, G. (2003). Business intelligence
shifts to a central role. Retrieved December 29, 2006,
from http://www.vnunet.com/print/it/1141314
Gregor, S. (2001). Explanations from knowledge-based
systems and cooperative problem solving: An empirical study. International Journal of Human-Computer
Studies, 54(1), 81-105.
Gregor, S., & Benbasat, I. (1999). Explanations from intelligent systems: Theoretical foundations and implications
for practice. MIS Quarterly, 23(4), 497-530.
Gronroos, C. (1996). Relationship marketing: strategic
and tactical implications. Management Decision, 34(3),
5-10.
Compiled References
0
Compiled References
Kelly, D., & Teevan, J. (2003). Implicit feedback for inferring user preference. SIGIR Forum, 37(2), 18-28.
Jones, R. M., & Towill, D.R. (1997). Information enrichment: Designing the supply chain for competitive
advantage. Supply Chain Management, 2(4), 137-148.
Kettinger, W., & Marchand, D. (2005). Leveraging information locally and globally: The right mix of flexibility
and standardization (IMD Working Paper, IMD-200502, pp. 1-20).
Kim, K. H., Song, J. Y., & Wang, K. H. (1997). A negotiation based scheduling for items with flexible process
plans. Computer & Industrial Engineering, 33(3-4),
785-788.
Compiled References
Krishnamurthy, S. (2002). Supply chain intelligence. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from http://www.wipro.com
Kuo, F. Y. (1998). Managerial intuition and the development of executive support systems. Decision Support
Systems, 24(2), 89-103.
Kwanghui, L. (2000). The relationship between publications and patents by researchers at five companies
(Working Paper No. 4120). Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Sloan.
Levy, A. (2000). Logic-based techniques in data integration. In Jack Minker (Ed.), Logic based artificial
intelligence. Kluwer Publishers.
Levy, D., Alvesson, M. & Willmott, H. (2003). Critical
approaches to strategic management. In M. Alvesson
& H. Willmott (Eds.), Studying management critically.
London: Sage Publications.
Lewis, W. J. (2001). Data warehousing and e-commerce.
Prentice Hall.
Li, D., Kehoe, D., & Drake, P. (2006). Dynamic planning with RFID in food supply chains. International
Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 30(910), 938-944.
Li, D., Tang, O., & OBrien, C. (2005b, July 31-August
4). Dynamic pricing through AutoID-enabled product
tracing in food supply chains. In Proceedings of 18th
International Conference on Production Research,
Sereno, Italy.
Liang, T.-P., & Hung, S.-Y. (1997). DSS and EIS applications in Taiwan. Information Technology & People,
10(4), 303-315.
Licker, P. S. (1997). Management information systems:
A strategic leadership approach. The Dryden Press,
Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Compiled References
Compiled References
Compiled References
McAuliffe, T. P., & Shamlin, C. S. (1992). Critical information network. The next generation of executive information systems. Boston: McAuliffe & Company, Inc.
McCartney, M. (2006). The RFID advantage: Protecting
perishables from to there. QLM Consulting, Inc. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from http://RFIDUpdate.com
McEvily, B., Perrone, V. & Zaheer, A. (2003). Trust as
an organising principle. Organisation Science, 14(1),
91-103.
McFarlane, D., Sarmab, S., Chirna, J. L., Wonga, C. Y.,
& Ashton, K. (2003). Auto ID systems and intelligent
manufacturing control. Engineering Applications of
Artificial Intelligence, 16, 365376.
McKnight, D. H., Kacmar, C. J. & Choudhury, V. (2004).
Dispositional trust and distrust distinction in predicting
high and low-risk internet expert advice site perceptions.
E-Service Journal, 3(2), 35-58.
McLain, D. L. & Hackman, K. (1999). Trust, risk, and
decision-making in organisational change. Public Administration Quarterly, 23(2), 152-176.
McMichael, D. (2005). Business intelligence: CSIRO
mathematical and information sciences. Retrieved
December 29, 2006, from http://www1.cmis.csiro.au/
bi/what-is-BI.htm
McNichol, J. (1993). What senior management wants
from marketing research. Medical Marketing & Media,
28(5), 14-20.
Medline. (2006). Acces to Medline through Pubmed.
Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.
nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed
Melby, A. (1990). Benefits and limitations of formal
systems in technical writing. In H. Czap & W. Nedobity
(Eds.), TKE90 terminology and knowledge engineering.
Proceedings of the Second International Congress on
Terminology and Knowledge Engineering, Frankfurt,
Germany (Vol. 1).
Menninger, D. (2005). The many worlds of business intelligence. Retrieved December 29, 2006, from http://www.
businessintelligence.com/ex/asp/code.31/xe/article.htm
Compiled References
Negash, S. (2004). Business intelligence. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 13,
177-195.
Morita, M., & Shinoda, Y. (1994). Information filtering based on user behaviour analysis and best match
retrieval. In Proceedings of the 17th Annual Intl. ACM
SIGIR Conference for Research and Development (pp.
272-281),
Morrison, J. L., & Wilson, I. (1996). The strategic management response to the challenge of global change.
In H. Didsbury (Ed.), Future vision, ideas, insights and
strategies. Bethesda, MD: The World Future Society.
Mothe, J., Dkaki, T., & Dousset, B. (1998). Information
mining in astronomical literature with Tetralogie. In
R. Albrecht, N. Hook & H. A. Bushouse (Eds.), Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems VII, ASP
Conference Series (Vol. 145). Retrieved January 6, 2007,
from http://www.adass.org/adass/proceedings/adass97/
reprints/egretd2.pdf
Moukas, A., & Maes, P. (1998). Amalthaea: An evolving information filtering and discovery system for the
WWW. Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent
Systems, 1(1), 59-88.
Compiled References
Compiled References
Compiled References
RFID Gazette. (2005, August). Implantable RFID VeriChip faces nationwide resistance. Retrieved January 5,
2007, from http://www.rfidgazette.org/privacy/
Rhodes, B. J., & Starner, T. (1996). Remembrance agent:
A continuously automated information retrieval system.
In Proceedings the First International Conference on the
Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and MultiAgent Technology (PAAM 96), London (pp. 487-496).
Robinson, W. (2005). Defining your intelligence requirements. Intelligence Insights, 1(3), 7. Retrieved
January 3, 2007, from http://www.sla.org/division/dci/
Intelligence%20Insights/IIJuly05.pdf
Rockart, J. F., & De Long, D. W. (1988). Executive support
systems: The emergence of top management computer
use. IL: Homewood.
Rockart, J. F., & Treacy, M. E. (1982, January/February).
The CEO goes online. Harvard Business Review.
Roldn, J. L. (2000). Sistemas de informacin ejecutivos
(EIS): Gnesis, implantacin y repercusiones organizativas [Executive information systems (EIS): Emergence,
implementation and organisational impact]. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Facultad de Ciencias Econmicas
y Empresariales, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain.
Roldn, J. L., & Leal, A. (2003). Executive information
systems in Spain: A study of current practices and comparative analysis. In G. A. Forgionne, J. N. D. Gupta,
& M. Mora (Eds.), Decision making support systems:
Achievements and challenges for the new decade (pp.
287-304). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.
Roldn, J. L., & Leal, A. (2003). A validation test of an
adaptation of the DeLone and McLeans model in the
Compiled References
0
Compiled References
Simon, H. (1977). The new science of management decision. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Singh, S. K., Watson, H. J., & Watson, R. T. (2002). EIS
support for the strategic management process. Decision
Support Systems, 33(1), 71-85.
Smart Manufacturing Forum (2003). Optimising food
safety using RFID. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from
http://www.smartmanufacturingforum.com
Smartpatent. (2006). Description of Smartpatent. Retrieved January 6, 2007, from http://www.european-patent-office.org/epidos/conf/eac98/proceedings/ibm.pdf
Sprague, R. H., & Watson, H. J. (1993). Decision support
systems: Putting theory into practice (3rd ed.). PrenticeInternational
Sprague, R. H., & Watson, H. J. (1996). Decision support for management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice
Hall.
Srinivasa R. P., & Swarup, S. (2002). Business intelligence and logistics. Retrieved January 5, 2007, from
http://www.wipro.com
Srivihok, A. (1998). Effective management of executive
information systems implementations: A framework and
a model of successful EIS implementation. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Central University, Rockhampton,
Australia.
Stamper, R. (1973). Information in business and administrative systems. UK: John Wiley & Sons
Steadman, M. (2003). Business intelligence: The value
of BI for association executives. Retrieved December
29, 2006, from http://www.axi.ca/tca/Jul2003/guestarticle_5.shtml
Steer, I. J. (1995). The critical success factors for the
successful implementation of executive information
systems in the South African environment. Unpublished
MBA dissertation, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Stewart, K. J. (2003). Trust transfer on the world wide
Web. Organisation Science, 14(1), 5-17.
Compiled References
Compiled References
Louvieris & M. Howley (Eds.), Marketing in the esociety: Fourth IBM ebusiness conference proceedings (pp.
46-58). Guildford: University of Surrey.
Trim, P. R. J., & Lee, Y-I. (2005). The role of marketing intelligence officers in strategy formulation and
implementation. In P. Coate (Ed.), Handbook of business
strategy, 2006 (pp. 125-130). Bradford, CT: Emerald
Group Publishing Limited.
Trim, P. R. J., & Lee, Y-I. (2006). An internally focused synthesised marketing strategy underpinned by
qualitative research. Qualitative Market Research: An
International Journal, 9(3), 203-224.
Tsoukas, H., & Shepherd, J. (Eds.). (2004). Managing
the future: Foresight in the knowledge economy. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing.
Turban, E. (1995). Decision support and expert systems: Management support systems (4th ed.). London:
Prentice Hall.
Turban, E., & Aronson, J. E. (1998). Decision support
systems and intelligent systems (5th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Turban, E., Lee, J., & Viehland, D. (2004). Electronic
commerce; A managerial perspective (International ed.).
Pearson Prentice Hall.
Turban, E., McLean, E., & Wetherbe, J. (1999). Information technology for management (2nd ed.). New York:
John Wiley & Sons.
Turban, E., McLean, E., & Wetherbe, J. (2004). Information technology for management. Transforming
organizations in the digital economy (4th ed.). New York:
John Wiley & Sons.
Turban, E., Rainer, R. K., & Potter, R. E. (2005). Introduction to information technology (3rd ed.). New York:
John Wiley & Sons.
Turner, P. (1991). Using information to enhance competitive advantageThe marketing options. European
Journal of Marketing, 25(6), 55-64.
Compiled References
Wang, P., & Chan, P. S. (1995). Top management perception of strategic information processing in a turbulent
environment. The Leadership & Organizational Development Journal, 16(7), 33-43.
Warmouth, M. T., & Yen, D. (1992). A detailed analysis
of executive information systems. International Journal
of Information Management, 12(2), 192-208.
Watson, H. J., & Frolick, M. N. (1993). Determining
information requirements for an EIS. MIS Quarterly,
17(3), 255-269.
Watson, H. J., & Frolick, M. N. (1993). Determining
information requirements for an executive information
system. MIS Quarterly, 17(3), 255-269.
Watson, H. J., Harp, C. G., Kelly, G. G., & OHara, M. T.
(1992). Soften up! Computerworld, 26(42), 103-104.
Watson, H. J., Houdeshel, G., & Rainer, R. K. (1997).
Building executive information systems and other decision support applications. New York: John Wiley &
Sons.
Watson, H. J., OHara, M. T., Harp, C. G., & Kelly, G. G.
(1996). Including soft information in EISs. Information
Systems Management, 13(3), 66-77.
Watson, H. J., Rainer, R. K., & Frolick, M. N. (1992).
Executive information systems: An ongoing study of
current practices. International Information Systems,
1(2), 37-56.
Watson, H. J., Rainer, R. K., & Koh, C. E. (1991). Executive information systems: A framework for development
and a survey of current practices. MIS Quarterly, 15(1),
13-30.
Watson, H. J., Watson, R. T., Singh, S., & Holmes, D.
(1995). Development practices for executive information
systems: Findings of a field study. Decision Support
Systems, 14(2), 171-184.
Weick, K. (1995). Sense-making in organizations. London: Sage Publications.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing
Compiled References
Xu, X. M., & Kaye, G. R. (1995). Building market intelligence systems for environment scanning. Logistics
Information Management, 8(2), 22-29.
Wong, B. K., Chong, J. K. S., & Park, J. (1994). Utilisation and benefits of expert systems in manufacturing.
International Journal Operations and Production
Management, 14(1), 38-49.
Xu, X. M., Kaye, G. R., & Duan, Y. (2003). UK executives vision on business environment for information
scanning: A cross industry study. Information & Management, 40, 381-389.
Wooldridge, M., & Dunne, P. E. (2005). The complexity of agent design problems: Determinism and history
dependence. Annals of mathematics and artificial intelligence (Vol. 45, pp. 343-371). Hingham, MA: Kluwer
Academic Publishers.
Wright, S. Pickton, D. W., & Callow, J. (2002). Competitive intelligence in UK firms: A typology. Marketing
Intelligence & Planning, 20(6), 349-360.
WWW.scip.org
Wyckham, R. G., Fitzroy, P. T., & Mandry, G. D. (1975).
Marketing of services: An evaluation of the theory. European Journal of Marketing, 9(1), 59-67.
Wyllie, J. (1993). The need for business information
refineries. Aslib Proceedings, 45(4), 97-102.
Wysocki, R. K., & DeMichiell, R. L. (1997). Managing information across the enterprise. New York: John
Wiley & Sons Inc.
Xu, M. Hu, Z., Long, W. & Liu, W. (2004). Service virtualisation: Infrastructure and applications. In I. Foster &
Yasin, M. M., & Yavas, U. (2003). A synergistic problem-solving approach to meeting challenges in retail
organisations. Marketing Intelligence & Planning,
21(1), 45-50.
Young, D., & Watson, H. J. (1995). Determinates of
EIS acceptance. Information & Management, 29(3),
153-164.
Yu, Z., Yan, H., & Cheng, T. C. E. (2001). Benefits of information sharing with supply chain partnerships. Industrial
Management & Data Systems, 101(3), 114-119.
Compiled References
Mark Xu, PhD, is a principal lecturer at University of Portsmouth (UK). He is course leader for ebusiness and research group leader for business information systems. His research interests are executive
information systems with a focus on strategic information scanning, information support and executives information behavior, and e-commerce strategy and implementation. He is a pooled researcher of
AIM (Advanced Institute of Management Research) at London Business School. He is the co-author of
CIMA study books, and has published over 40 papers including some in leading international journals
such as Information & Management, International Journal of Information Management, and Information Systems Management. He serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of E-Business
Research and as referee for other five international journals.
* * *
Udo Richard Averweg is employed as an information analyst at eThekwini Municipality, Durban
(South Africa). He entered the information technology industry during 1979 and holds a masters degree
in information technology (cum laude) and a masters degree in science. He is a professional member of
the Computer Society of South Africa and has delivered IT research papers locally and internationally
(USA, Australia, Egypt, Switzerland, Germany, and Mauritius). He has published peer-reviewed articles
in local and international journals. In January 2000, Averweg climbed to the summit of Africas highest
peak, Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895 meters), in Tanzania.
Peter Bednar is originally from an engineering background and has several years of experience
from industry in systems analysis and development. Bednar has been working as an academic from
1997 to the present. His research covers contextual analysis, organizational change, and information
systems development, and he has published several book chapters and many articles in these fields. He
is currently a senior lecturer in the School of Computing at the University of Portsmouth (UK) and is
also affiliated to the Department of Informatics at Lund University (Sweden).
Nik Bessis obtained a BA from the TEI of Athens (Greece) and completed his MA and PhD at De
Montfort University (UK). He lectures full-time at the University of Bedforshire (UK) and he is the
Copyright 2007, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
postgraduate course manager. His research interests encompass DSS and decision making theory, Grid
services, VOs, OGSA-DAI, WWW/online systems, IS, and SSM. He has a number of publications in
these areas and he has served as a reviewer in conferences and textbooks. Dr. Bessis is engaged in a
number of research and commercial projects in the areas of development and evaluation of collaborative
and decision-making services.
Franois Brouard is a bilingual chartered accountant with a BAA in business administration from
cole des Hautes tudes Commerciales de Montral (HEC), an MSc in accounting from Universit du
Qubec Montral (UQAM) and a DBA in business administration (DBA) from Universit du Qubec Trois-Rivires (UQTR). He is currently a faculty member in the accounting group at Eric Sprott
School of Business, Carleton University (Canada). He previously worked as a consultant in training
and strategic scanning, a professor at Universit du Qubec Hull (UQAH), a project manager for the
Professional Education Program of the Quebec Chartered Accountants Order and a lecturer in several
universities. He also worked in auditing and tax for an international CA firm (Samson Blair / Deloitte
& Touche). His research interests include environmental scanning and strategy, business intelligence,
accounting, information systems, professional education, taxation, and financial planning. He is presently working on the development of an expert system to serve as a diagnostic tool of environmental
scanning practices of SMEs.
Marina Burakova-Lorgnier obtained her MA and PhD in social psychology from Rostov State
University (Russia), and further held a position of assistant professor. Her research covers areas of gender identity, nonverbal behavior, social network, and knowledge sharing, where she has a number of
publications. She has served as a conference and textbook reviewer and an expert for local government
councils and NGOs. She is engaged with research projects in gender attitudes and social capital and
combines a PhD research in knowledge management with a part-time lecturing at the European School
of Business and at the University of Bordeaux (France).
Henri Dou, professor at the University of Aix Marseille III (France), University Paul Czanne, is
also associated with the ESCEM (Ecole Suprieure de Commerce et de Management, France) and with
the University UNIMA (Indonesia). Dou is a petrochemical engineer and obtained his PhD in organic
chemistry at the University of Aix-Marseille but he earned part of it in Canada, Nova Scottia. He
joined the University of Aix-Marseille III (1985) as professor in information science. His specialities
are technology watch, competitive intelligence, and regional development. Most of his recent activities
are centred on Indonesia, China, and South America. Dou is president of the French Society of Applied Bibliometry and a member of various advisory boards (France, Europe, and Asia). He holds other
positions as charg de mission near the direction of the CNRS (French National Research Center),
general secretary of Chemical Information Network of Unesco (ChIN) and French representative at the
Oceanographic International Commission.
Jean-Marie Dou obtained his PhD in information science at the University of Aix-Marseille III
(France) after a specialization in mechanic and technology watch. He holds various positions including Matre de Confrences associ at the University of Provence, technical director of the company
Medical Process, coordinator of European projects, manager and fonder of the IMCS Company and
recently he joined the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Marseille. He is a specialist of economic
intelligence management at the CIME Department (Center of Innovation and Mediterranean Management). He develops his research interest to the development of small and middle size companies and
intellectual property.
Yanqing Duan, PhD, is a professor in information systems at The Business School of University of
Bedfordshire (UK). Her principal research interest is the development and use of advanced information
and communication systems (ICTs) in, and their impact on, business and management, especially for
improving individual and organizational decision-making and performance. She is particularly interested
in knowledge management, especially the ICT based knowledge transfer, and the use of e-learning in
enhancing knowledge and skills in SMEs. She has coordinated many European Commission-funded
research projects and published over 80 papers in journals, books and international conference proceedings.
Tim French obtained a BA from the Open University (UK) and an MA from the Nottingham University (UK) while working full-time in commerce. French has supported a variety of SMEs and large
blue-chip organizations in the optimisation of their online services. His current research interests
encompass usability and trust aspects of e-services. He is a member of the BCS and a fellow of the
CollP. French is a member of the Applied Semiotics with Informatics Research Laboratory based at
Reading University (UK) where he is engaged on a part-time PhD research. He lectures full-time at
the University of Bedforshire (UK).
Wei Huang obtained his BSc and MSc from South China University of Technology and completed
his PhD at Loughborough University (UK). He also conducted three years postdoctoral research at the
University of Nottingham before he joined the University of Bedfordshire. Dr. Huangs current research
encompasses AI and OR optimization, wireless network planning, Web services, and Grid computing.
He has a number of publications and he has served as a journal and conference reviewer. He is currently
engaged with a number of research and commercial projects in graphical web services development
and wireless network planning.
Amy Hykes is a research associate at IMD in Lausanne (Switzerland). Prior to joining IMD, Hykes
worked as a senior product marketing manager at Stellent, a content management software provider
located in Minneapolis, MN. Prior to Stellent, she was an equity research associate at William Blair
& Company in Chicago where she covered the computer software sector. Hykes began her career as a
business consultant at Accenture, first in Washington, DC and later in Chicago. Hykes has a BA in economics from Georgetown University and holds a Master in Business Administration from the University
of Chicago Graduate School of Business with concentrations in strategy and marketing.
Roland Kaye is a professor of management accounting at the Norwich Business School, University
of East Anglia (UK). He previously held a chair in information management at the Open University
Business School where latterly he was dean. He left the Open University to become president of the
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants before taking up his current post. He is a governor
of Ashridge Management College and recently stepped down from the executive and treasurer role in
the Association of Business Schools. Previously, he has worked as a management accountant in vari-
ous industrial companies before a move into academic life and consultancy. He has led many research
projects in management accounting and information systems, and published a number of books and
articles on financial planning, strategic management of information, and innovation.
Dennis Kehoe is royal academy of engineering research professor in e-business at the University
of Liverpool (UK). He is the leader of the Liverpool Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre in eBusiness and Centre in Advanced Internet Methods and Emergent Systems. He has been the principal
grant holder for a series of research projects funded by UK and EU. His research interests include
management of enterprises and e-business modelling and prototyping supply chain management. Most
of his research has appeared in international journals such as Logistics (Research and Applications),
Operations & Production Management, Advanced Manufacturing Technologies, among others.
Yang-Im Lee, PhD, has studied and worked in South Korea, Japan, and the UK. She is at present a
lecturer in marketing at Royal Holloway, University of London (UK). Dr. Lee is a strategic marketing
specialist who has provided a number of guest lectures and presented papers at various international
conferences. She has undertaken research in the areas of international marketing, strategic marketing,
and international management and culture. At present she is focusing her research effort in the areas of
comparative management and international marketing.
Dong Li joined the Management School of The University of Liverpool (UK) (2002). He received
his PhD (1999) from University of Nottingham. He worked as a research fellow afterwards and then
became a senior lecturer. His research includes supply chain optimization, RFID enabled business
modelling, intelligent supply chain systems, and e-business modelling. Most of his research has appeared in international journals such as Production Economics, Advanced Manufacturing Technology,
Intelligent Manufacturing, Services Operations and Informatics, and book chapter on intelligent supply
chain management. Dr. Li is a member of Production and Operations Management Society and UK
Association of Information Systems.
Kinchung Liu received his BSc in e-business from University of Liverpool (UK) (2003). He joined
the AiMes Centre at University of Liverpool in the same year as a PhD research student. His research
is on framework of supply chain tracking application development. He has published his research in a
peer reviewed conference proceeding. At the research centre, he has involved in more than ten projects
on applications of tracking technologies such as GPS and RFID for manufacturing and supply chain
management.
Stuart Maguire, PhD, is a lecturer in information systems within the Management School, Sheffield
University (UK). Maguire has worked in several private and public sector organisations as a systems
analyst and systems consultant. He has undertaken research and consultancy in over 150 organizations.
He has also developed and delivered executive development programmes for middle and senior managers
in areas such as consultancy and project management. Recently he has provided professional assistance
on several national and international projects. Maguire has formulated his own methodology (OASES)
for introducing information systems into organisations. He has recently focused on how organisations
attempt to manage business intelligence at times of major change.
00
Donald Marchand is a professor of strategy and information management at the International Institute
for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne (Switzerland). His special interests include managing
information and knowledge to drive superior business performance, internet strategies, demand/supply chain management, and the strategic use and deployment of information systems and technology
in companies operating in local, regional and global markets. He has directed several major research
projects and has authored/co-authored eight successful books and over 140 articles, book chapters,
cases, and reports. Professor Marchand earned a PhD and MA at UCLA and a BA at the University of
California, Berkeley (Phi Beta Kappa), after which he held academic posts at Syracuse University and
the University of South Carolina.
Brian Mathews is a professor of marketing at The Business School, University of Bedfordshire
(UK). He received his bachelors degree from the University of Bradford and his MBA and PhD from
the University of Strathclyde. The majority of his research is interdisciplinary in nature and he has
published widely in leading journals including the International Journal of Research in Marketing, the
Journal of Organizational and Occupational Psychology, the Human Resource Management Journal,
and the Services Industries Journal.
Juan Luis Nicolau, PhD (economics) is an assistant professor at the University of Alicante (Spain).
His main research interests are the analysis of the individual decision-making through probabilistic
choice models and of firms market value. He has published in the following journals: Strategic Management Journal, European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Service Industry
Management, International Marketing Review, International Journal of Market Research, Annals of
Tourism Research, Tourism Management, Revista de Economa Aplicada, and Moneda y Crdito.
Vincent Ong, PhD, is a senior lecturer at The Business School of University of Bedfordshire (UK).
His principal research interest includes executive information systems, strategic intelligence processing,
information processing, and information agent applications. He is particularly interested in the development and use of advanced software agent and Internet technologies for strategic intelligence processing.
He is actively involved in European Commission funded research projects.
Jos L. Roldn, PhD, is an assistant professor of business administration at the University of Seville
(Spain). He has published three books and several articles in the fields of management and information
systems. His recent contributions have been published in Industrial Marketing Management, International Journal of Technology Management, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, Internet
Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, Quality Assurance in Education, and OR
Insight. Furthermore, he has published four book chapters for IGI Global. His current research interests
include business intelligence, knowledge management, and partial least squares.
Habibu Suluo is a senior principal accountant, specialising in financial systems, and working for
the Tanzanian Revenue Authority. For the previous 10 years, he had been a systems analyst and senior
business analyst. Four of those years were spent working for the Tanzania Electric Supply Company
Limited. Mr. Suluo was awarded a BCom degree (1994) and became a certified public accountant in
Tanzania (2003). Suluo was awarded a Chevening scholarship, funded by the Foreign & Commonwealth
0
Office, to study at Sheffield University (2004). Suluo was awarded the degree of MBA with distinction
from the Management School, Sheffield University (UK) (2005).
Adeline du Toit is a professor and head of the Department of Information and Knowledge Management at the University of Johannesburg (South Africa). She has extensive corporate consulting, research,
and teaching experience in strategic competitive intelligence. Her research focuses on information
management and competitive intelligence in the manufacturing industry. Adeline is an active author
who has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in local and international journals including International Journal of Information Management, Aslib Proceedings, South African Journal of Economic
and Management Sciences, and Management Dynamics. She is a regular presenter at conferences and
workshops and is active in information management training and consulting at several South African
companies.
Peter Trim, PhD, is a senior lecturer in management and director of the Centre for Advanced
Management and Interdisciplinary Studies (CAMIS) at Birkbeck College, University of London (UK).
During his academic career, he has taught a range of marketing and purchasing courses in France,
The Netherlands, and the UK. He has also taught in Hong Kong and has published widely in a number
of areas including strategic marketing, industrial marketing, management education, corporate intelligence, corporate security and national security. Dr. Trim has worked in several industries and has
participated in a number of academic, government and industry workshops, both in the UK and abroad.
He is a member of a number of professional institutions, is a member of several editorial boards and is
the current Chairman of the Society for the Advancement of Games and Simulations in Education and
Training (SAGSET).
Xiaojun Wang received his first degree in computer science (2001) at Zhejiang University (China).
He obtained his MSc in e-business management from the University of Warwick (2002). Before he
started his PhD study in the University of Liverpool (UK) (2004), he worked as an IT manager in Dadong Electronic Ltd. (China). Wangs PhD research is on optimization modelling of food traceability
and operations management in food supply chains. He has published scientific articles in peer-reviewed
conference proceedings and the International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics.
Christine Welch is a principal lecturer in the Department of Strategy and Business Systems, part
of the Business School at the University of Portsmouth (UK). She is course leader designate of the new
MSc in knowledge management at Portsmouth. Her research interests include critical systemic thinking, contextual analysis and organizational change, and she has published several papers in these fields.
She is currently convenor of the Southern Regional Centre of the UK Systems Society, and a member
of the UKSS Board.
0
0
Index
A
accommodation information 89
activity-based costing (ABC) 19
ad-hoc location 42
agent-based EIS 79
design model 69, 78
support 77
artificial intelligence (AI) 75, 165, 226
assimilation information 89
Association of British Insurers (ABI) 45
automatic patent analysis (APA) 259
B
Bata Insurance Group Plc 44
benchmarking approach 59
business intelligence (BI) 14, 15, 29, 38
C
Canadian Airlines International (CAI) 251
certificate authorities (CAs) 184
Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) 45
CI cycle 112
code scheme 78
commercial scanning 123
competitive
intelligence (CI) 111
scanning 123
competitors information (CI) 37
Corporate
Intelligence
Steering Committee 60
corporate
intelligence 60
performance
management (CPM) 19
radar
system (CRS) 36
counterintelligence operations 60
critical success factor (CSF) 74
customer relationship management (CRM) 19, 20
D
data
-set (DS) 192
access and integration (DAI) 191
service group registry (DAISGR) 192
agent (DA) 215
Data Protection Act 30
decision support system (DSS) 37, 74, 92, 179
distributed
artificial intelligence (DAI) 75
query processing (DQP) 185
Copyright 2007, Idea Group Inc., distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI is prohibited.
Index
E
Economic Espionage Act 57
electronic product code (EPC) 206
enterprise
information portal (EIP) 75, 236
resource planning (ERP) 15, 92
European Article Numbering system (EAN) 204
executive
-agent
interaction (EAI) 81
learning (EAL) 81
information system (EIS) 37, 69, 70, 74, 87, 89, 224
support system (ESS) 37, 74
Executive Intelligence Alliance Policy Strategy Monitoring Group 60
expert systems (ES) 75, 180
G
Global Grid Forum (GGF) 184
global positioning systems (GPS) 203
Grid data service (GDS) 192
factory (GDSF) 192
H
Helms-Burton Act 153
high frequency (HF) 206
I
information
filtering (IF) 73
orientation (IO) 1
retrieval (IR) 72
systems (IS) 88
technology (IT) 15, 88, 92
intelligence (IS) 92
intelligent
product (IP) 214
agents (IPA) 215
IO framework 7
performance
indicators (KPIs) 74, 225
knowledge
-based systems (KBS) 75
base (KB) 229
management systems (KMS) 180
L
Landesbank Baden Wurtenburg (LBBW) 185
low frequency (LF) 206
M
machine aided indexing (MAI) 229
management
information systems (MIS)
71, 74, 92
support systems (MSS) 180
market
leader 59
situation 57
marketing intelligence officers 65
Matheo-Analyzer 250
medium-sized enterprise (SME) 17, 123, 126
middleware agent (MWA) 215
N
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
229
O
object name services (ONS) 206
open Grid services architecture (OGSA) 184
data access integration (OGSA-DAI) 179, 186
P
personal digital assistant (PDA) 180
physical mark-up language (PML) 206
public key infrastructure (PKI) 181
key
intelligence
needs (KINs) 111
questions (KIQ) 114
0
Index
semi
-autonomous function 80
-reactive function 80
service-oriented architecture (SOA) 185
small and medium enterprises (SMEs) 186
socio scanning 123
SST framework 170
strategic
intelligence
system (SIS) 89, 123
intelligence (SQ) 87, 126
marketing 60
intelligence framework 56
systemic thinking (SST) framework 167
supply chain management (SCM) 19
V
variance inflation factor (VIF) 151
viable system model (VSM) 71
virtual organizations (VO) 181, 189, 195, 198
W
Web
-based technology 69, 100
services
inter-operability (WS-I) 191
resource framework (WSRF) 191
T
technological scanning 123
thematic qualitative analysis (TQA) 230
0