I am retiring. CompetitiveIntelligence.com may be for sale.

Competitive intelligence is the art of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors, individuals, concepts, information, ideas or data needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization. Includes a broad array from government intelligence to market intelligence to business intelligence. Competitor Intelligence can include competitor analysis, knowledge management, market research and business strategy and business research. Competitor Intelligence can be used as an everyday business tool to analyze stocks or look for weaknesses in your competitor. Competitor Intelligence can be used for everyday consumer activities such as comparing renters insurance plans to buying motorcycle insurance. As a bonus, at the bottom of this page, I have included the ultimate 35 second video on just what is competitive intelligence. Before You Do Competitive Intelligence On A Competitor Practice On Yourself. 10 Ways To Find How Much Traffic / Business Your Competitor is Getting Using the Internet For Competitive Intelligence. Ever wonder how that competitor of yours is doing? Curious about how you can find out how much traffic or how many orders they receive? You can use the internet to perform competitive intelligence on your competitors, and then take that information and use it to improve your site. By using these existing online Internet tools and social engineering queries, you can find out how much business your competitors is earning. Before you can run these competitive analysis tests on your competitors, try running this on yourself or your company or your own site first. If you are thinking about starting a business, you can Test the business by estimating how well you might do. As a side note, the best way to test this is to try these techniques on your site to see if your competitors can determine how much business you are doing. Lets start with the easiest methods and work upwards: 1. Stat Counter: See if they have a visible stat counter visit every day for a week and see how the counter changes. Then visit it weekly to watch for changes such as spikes around Christmas, or if there is a news story related to your industry, if that results in more traffic. 2. Order Something: Another way to get competitive intelligence on a competitor is to order something small and see what the invoice number is, then go back and order a week later and see how that invoice number changed. Repeat as often as your curiosity and bank balance allows you to. 3. Check Alexa Ranking: Alexa is a service that estimates traffic based on visitors to various sites using the Alexa toolbar. From the Alexa site, it says; How are Alexas traffic rankings determined? Alexas traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users over a rolling 3 month period. A sites ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and page views. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day. Page views are the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site. However, multiple requests for the same URL on the same day by the same user are counted as a single page view. The site with the highest combination of users and page views is ranked #1. Alexas traffic rankings are for top level domains only (e.g. domain.com). We do not provide separate rankings for subpages within a domain (e.g. www.domain.com/subpage.html) or subdomains (e.g. subdomain.domain.com) unless we are able to automatically identify them as personal home pages or blogs, like those hosted on Geocities and Tripod. If a site is identified as a personal home page or blog, its traffic ranking will have an asterisk (*) next to it: Personal Page Avg. Traffic Rank: 3,456*. Personal pages are ranked on the same scale as a regular domain, so a personal page ranked 3,456* is the 3,456th most popular page among Alexa users. 4. Check Statbrain: Statbrain is another service to estimate the amount of traffic to a site. They say,How accurate is Statbrain? Statbrain estimates the number of visits that a website has based on offsite factors like backlinks, Alexa Rank etc. Statbrain does not have access to log files or any counter information. The number of visits that Statbrain estimates gives you an idea of the number of visits that a website has, but not the exact visitor number. I have tested it against some of my sites and I would say it is in the ballpark. 5. Yahoo Search: Use Yahoo Search to determine who links to a particular site In the search box enter EACH of the following permutations, as even though they appear the same, they may produce different results

http://www.DomainName.com http://DomainName.com DomainName.com link:http://DomainName.com link:http://www.DomainName.com link:DomainName.com http://www.DomainName.com with the quote marks www.DomainName.com with the quote marks DomainName.com with the quote marks Please note, that some of the above searches will return zero results, while others may return thousands of results. 6. Google Search: Use Google Search to determine who links to a particular site In the search box enter EACH of the following permutations, as even though they appear the same, they may produce different results http://www.DomainName.com http://DomainName.com DomainName.com link:http://DomainName.com link:http://www.DomainName.com link:DomainName.com http://www.DomainName.com with the quote marks www.DomainName.com with the quote marks DomainName.com with the quote marks Please note, that some of the above searches will return zero results, while others may return thousands of results. 7. WhoLinks2Me: Use online link analysis resources to analyze competitors links. Try WhoLinks2Me 8. Social Engineering Look-Ups: Try social engineering look-ups and try and guess the admin page for the competitors stat program domainname.com/logs.htm domainname.com/logs.html domainname.com/stats.html domainname.com/stats/ domainname.com/admin/ domainname.com/logs/ not all these work, but you get the idea. 9. Social Engineering Searchers: Try social engineering searches ie domainname.com +logs domainname.com +stats domainname.com +number of visitors domainname.com +visitors not all these work, but you get the idea. 10. HTML: Try peeking at the HTML Do a view source and see if you can see a reference to a stat counter. Usually you can find the code for a stat program right before the closing body HTML code, ie /body Some times domains use free stats counters I just randomly searched and found http://touchngo.com/stats/camyesterday.htm you can see their stats. And I found http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/stats_2005.htm since 2005 is so, well, 2005, I then guessed that they should have a 2006 page and 2007 page http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/stats_2006.htm neither worked but you get the idea and with just a little more searching on this site I found

A broad definition of competitive intelligence is the action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization.

Key points of this definition:

1. Competitive intelligence is an ethical and legal business practice, as opposed to industrial

espionage which is illegal.

2. The focus is on the external business environment.[1]

3. There is a process involved in gathering information, converting it into intelligence and then utilizing this in business decision making. CI professionals erroneously emphasize that if the intelligence gathered is not usable (or actionable) then it is not intelligence. A more focused definition of CI regards it as the organizational function responsible for the early identification of risks and opportunities in the market before they become obvious. Experts also call this process the early signal analysis. This definition focuses attention on the difference between dissemination of widely available factual information (such as market statistics, financial reports, newspaper clippings) performed by functions such as libraries and information centers, and competitive intelligence which is a perspective on developments and events aimed at yielding a competitive edge.[2] The term CI is often viewed as synonymous with competitor analysis, but competitive intelligence is more than analyzing competitors it is about making the organization more competitive relative to its entire environment and stakeholders: customers, competitors, distributors, technologies, macro-economic data etc.

Contents
[hide] 1 Historic development 2 Principles 3 Distinguishing competitive intelligence from similar fields 4 Ethics 5 See also

6 References

[edit] Historic development

The literature associated with the field of competitive intelligence is best exemplified by the detailed bibliographies that were published in the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals refereed academic journal called The Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management.[3][4][5][6] Although elements of organizational intelligence collection have been a part of business for many years, the history of competitive intelligence arguably began in the U.S. in the 1970s, although the literature on the field pre-dates this time by at least several decades.[6] In 1980, Michael Porter published the study Competitive-Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors which is widely viewed as the foundation of modern competitive

intelligence. This has since been extended most notably by the pair of Craig Fleisher and Babette Bensoussan, who through several popular books on competitive analysis have added 48 commonly applied competitive intelligence analysis techniques to the practitioner's tool box.[7][8] In 1985, Leonard Fuld published his best selling book dedicated to competitor intelligence.[9] However, the institutionalization of CI as a formal activity among American corporations can be traced to 1988, when Ben and Tamar Gilad published the first organizational model of a formal corporate CI function, which was then adopted widely by US companies.[10] The first professional certification program (CIP) was created in 1996 with the establishment of The FuldGilad-Herring Academy of Competitive Intelligence in Cambridge, MA, followed in 2004 by the Institute for Competitive Intelligence. In 1986 the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) was founded in the U.S. and grew in the late 1990s to around 6000 members worldwide, mainly in the U.S. and Canada, but with large numbers especially in UK and Germany. Due to financial difficulties in 2009, the organization merged with Frost & Sullivan under the Frost & Sullivan Institute. SCIP has since been renamed "Strategic & Competitive Intelligence Professionals" to emphasise the strategic nature of the subject, and also to refocus the organisation's general approach, while keeping the existing SCIP brandname and logo. A number of efforts have been made to discuss the field's advances in post-secondary (university) education, covered by several authors including Blenkhorn & Fleisher,[11] Fleisher,[12] Fuld,[13] Prescott,[14] and McGonagle,[15] among others. Although the general view would be that competitive intelligence concepts can be readily found and taught in many business schools around the globe, there are still relatively few dedicated academic programs, majors, or degrees in the field, a concern to academics in the field who would like to see it further researched.[12] These issues were widely discussed by over a dozen knowledgeable individuals in a special edition of the Competitive Intelligence Magazine that was dedicated to this topic.[16] On the other hand, practitioners regard professional accreditation as more important.[17] In 2011, SCIP recognized the Fuld-Gilad-Herring Academy of Competitive Intelligence's CIP certification process as its global, dual-level (CIP-I and CIP-II) certification program. Global developments have also been uneven in competitive intelligence.[18] Several academic journals, particularly the Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management in its third volume, provided coverage of the field's global development.[19] For example, in 1997 the Ecole de Guerre Economique (School of economic warfare) was founded in Paris, France. It is the first European institution which teaches the tactics of economic warfare within a globalizing world. In Germany, competitive intelligence was unattended until the early 1990s. The term "competitive intelligence" first appeared in German literature in 1997. In 1995 a German SCIP chapter was founded, which is now second in terms of members in Europe. In summer 2004 the Institute for Competitive Intelligence was founded, which provides a post-graduate certification program for Competitive Intelligence Professionals. Japan is currently the only country that officially maintains an economic intelligence agency (JETRO). It was founded by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1958. Accepting the importance of competitive intelligence, major multinational corporations, such as ExxonMobil, Procter & Gamble, and Johnson and Johnson, have created formal CI units. [Citation Needed] Importantly, organizations execute competitive intelligence activities not only

as a safeguard to protect against market threats and changes, but also as a method for finding new opportunities and trends.

[edit] Principles
Organizations use competitive intelligence to compare themselves to other organizations ("competitive benchmarking"), to identify risks and opportunities in their markets, and to pressure-test their plans against market response (war gaming), which enable them to make informed decisions. Most firms today realize the importance of knowing what their competitors are doing and how the industry is changing, and the information gathered allows organizations to understand their strengths and weaknesses. The actual importance of these categories of information to an organization depends on the contestability of its markets, the organizational culture, and personality and biases of its top decision makers, and the reporting structure of competitive intelligence within the company. Strategic Intelligence (SI): focus is on the longer term, looking at issues affecting a companys competitiveness over the course of a couple of years. The actual time horizon for SI ultimately depends on the industry and how quickly its changing. The general questions that SI answers are, Where should we as a company be in x Years? and 'What are the strategic risks and opportunities facing us?' This type of intelligence work involves among others the identification of weak signals and application of methodology and process called Strategic Early Warning (SEW), first introduced by Gilad,[20][21][22] followed by Steven Shaker and Victor Richardson,[23] Alessandro Comai and Joaquin Tena,[24][25] and others. According to Gilad, 20% of the work of competitive intelligence practitioners should be dedicated to strategic early identification of weak signals within a SEW framework. Tactical Intelligence: the focus is on providing information designed to improve shorter-term decisions, most often related with the intent of growing market share or revenues. Generally, the type of information that you would need to support the sales process in an organization. Investigates various aspects of a product/product line marketing: Product - what are people selling? Price - what price are they charging? Promotion - what activities are they conducting for promoting this product? Place - where are they selling this product? Other - sales force structure, clinical trial design, technical issues, etc. With the right amount of information, organizations can avoid unpleasant surprises by anticipating competitors moves and decreasing response time. Examples of competitive intelligence research is evident in Daily Newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal, Business Week and Fortune. Major airlines change hundreds of fares daily in response to competitors tactics. They use information to plan their own marketing, pricing, and production strategies. Resources, such as the Internet, have made gathering information on competitors easy. With a click of a button, analysts can discover future trends and market requirements. However competitive intelligence is much more than this, as the ultimate aim is to lead to competitive advantage. As the Internet is mostly public domain material, information gathered is less likely to result in insights that will be unique to the company. In fact there is a risk that information

gathered from the Internet will be misinformation and mislead users, so competitive intelligence researchers are often wary of using such information. As a result, although the Internet is viewed as a key source, most CI professionals should spend their time and budget gathering intelligence using primary research networking with industry experts, from trade shows and conferences, from their own customers and suppliers, and so on. Where the Internet is used, it is to gather sources for primary research as well as information on what the company says about itself and its online presence (in the form of links to other companies, its strategy regarding search engines and online advertising, mentions in discussion forums and on blogs, etc.). Also, important are online subscription databases and news aggregation sources which have simplified the secondary source collection process. Social media sources are also becoming important - providing potential interviewee names, as well as opinions and attitudes, and sometimes breaking news (e.g. via Twitter). Organizations must be careful not to spend too much time and effort on old competitors without realizing the existence of any new competitors. Knowing more about your competitors will allow your business to grow and succeed. The practice of competitive intelligence is growing every year, and most companies and business students now realize the importance of knowing their competitors. According to Arjan Singh and Andrew Beurschgens in their 2006 article in the Competitive Intelligence Review, there are 4 stages of development of a competitive intelligence capability with a firm. It starts from Stick Fetching, where a CI department is very reactive, to World Class where it is completely integrated in the decision making process.

[edit] Distinguishing competitive intelligence from similar fields

Competitive Intelligence is depended on the Intelligence Cycle which is the basic principle of the national intelligence activity. The website of the CIA[26] is providing a comprehensive explanation of this key principle. This is a five steps process aiming towards creating value to the intelligence activity, mainly to the decision-makers. It took CI a few years to comprehend that operating in the business field to value the corporation with better understanding of the external threats and opportunities,[27] comprises numerous constraints, mainly ethical and legal which are obviously less relevant while operating for governments. This process of emerging CI since the 1980s and building up its strengths is described by Prescott.[28] Competitive intelligence is often confused with, or viewed to have overlapping elements with related fields like market research, environmental scanning, business intelligence, and marketing research, just to name a few.[29] Some have questioned whether the name of "competitive intelligence" is even a satisfactory one to apply to the field[29] In a 2003 book chapter, Fleisher compares and contrasts competitive intelligence to business intelligence, competitor intelligence, knowledge management, market intelligence, marketing research, and strategic intelligence[30] The argument put forth by former SCIP President and CI author Craig Fleisher[30][verification needed] suggests that business intelligence has two forms. In its narrower (contemporary) form has more

of an information technology and internal focus than competitive intelligence while its broader (historical) definition is actually more encompassing than the contemporary practice of CI. Knowledge management (KM), when it isn't properly achieved (it needs an appropriate taxonomy for being up the best standards in the domain), is also viewed as being a heavily information technology driven organizational practice, that relies on data mining, corporate intranets, and mapping organizational assets, among other things, in order to make it accessible to organizational members for decision making. The CI shares some aspects of the real KM that is ideally and definitely human intelligence and experiences-based for more sophisticated qualitative analysis, creativity, prospective views. KM is essential for effective innovations. Market intelligence (MI) is industry-targeted intelligence that is developed on real-time (i.e., dynamic) aspects of competitive events taking place among the 4Ps of the marketing mix (i.e., pricing, place, promotion, and product) in the product or service marketplace in order to better understand the attractiveness of the market.[31] A time-based competitive tactic, MI insights are used by marketing and sales managers to hone their marketing efforts so as to more quickly respond to consumers in a fast-moving, vertical (i.e., industry) marketplace. Craig Fleisher suggests it is not distributed as widely as some forms of CI, which are distributed to other (nonmarketing) decision-makers as well.[30][verification needed] Market intelligence also has a shorter-term time horizon than many other intelligence areas and is usually measured in days, weeks, or, in some slower-moving industries, a handful of months. Marketing research is a tactical, methods-driven field that consists mainly of neutral primary research that draws on customer data in the form of beliefs and perceptions as gathered through surveys or focus groups, and is analyzed through the application of statistical research techniques.[32] In contrast, CI typically draws on a wider variety (i.e., both primary and secondary) of sources, from a wider range of stakeholders (e.g., suppliers, competitors, distributors, substitutes, media, and so on), and seeks not just to answer existing questions but also to raise new ones and to guide action.[30][verification needed] In the 2001 article by Ben Gilad and Jan Herring, the authors lay down a set of basic prerequisites that define the unique nature of CI and distinguish it from other information-rich disciplines such as market research or business development. They show that a common body of knowledge and a unique set of applied tools (Key Intelligence Topics, Business War Games, Blindspots analysis) make CI clearly different, and that while other sensory activities in the commercial firm focus on one category of players in the market (customers or suppliers or acquisition targets), CI is the only integrative discipline calling for a synthesis of the data on all High Impact Players (HIP).[17] In a later article,[2] Gilad focuses his delineation of CI more forcefully on the difference between information and intelligence. According to Gilad, the commonality among many organizational sensory functions, whether called Market Research, Business Intelligence or Market intelligence is that in practice they deliver facts and information, not intelligence. Intelligence, by Gilad, is a perspective on facts, not the facts themselves. Uniquely among other corporate functions, competitive intelligence has a specific perspective of external risks and opportunities to the firms overall performance, and as such it is part of an organization's risk management activity, not information activities.

[edit] Ethics
Ethics has been a long-held issue of discussion amongst CI practitioners.[29] Essentially, the questions revolve around what is and is not allowable in terms of CI practitioners' activity. A number of very excellent scholarly treatments have been generated on this topic, most prominently addressed through Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals publications.[33] The book Competitive Intelligence Ethics: Navigating the Gray Zone provides nearly twenty separate views about ethics in CI, as well as another 10 codes used by various individuals or organizations.[33] Combining that with the over two dozen scholarly articles or studies found within the various CI bibliographic entries,[34][verification needed][5][6][35] it is clear that no shortage of study has gone into better classifying, understanding and addressing CI ethics. Competitive information may be obtained from public or subscription sources, from networking with competitor staff or customers, or from field research interviews. Competitive intelligence research is distinguishable from industrial espionage, as CI practitioners generally abide by local legal guidelines and ethical business norms.[36]
What is competitive intelligence? How does competitive intelligence fit into the strategic planning process? What is the role of knowledge management and how does it relate to competitive intelligence? Is competitor analysis identical to competitive intelligence? How can competitive intelligence become part of a corporate intranet strategy? How do we train our employees to beware of corporate espionage and protect our intellectual property? Do the companies we compete with engage in competitive intelligence on us and what is the effectiveness of their competitive intelligence process? How do we measure the effectiveness of our own CI process? The question of what Competitive Intelligence (CI) consists of is not as necessary to understanding its importance in business than understanding a bigger and more important question -- why do some firms in an industry win and achieve hegemony where others, often with superior resources, fail In short, CI is the purposeful and coordinated monitoring of your competitor(s), wherever and whoever they may be, within a specific marketplace... Your "competitors" are those firms which you consider rivals in business, and with whom you compete for market share. CI also has to do with determining what your business rivals WILL DO before they do it. Strategically, to gain foreknowledge of your competitor's plans and to plan your business strategy to countervail their plans. As you might expect, this will involve many methods at the tactical collection level, but it will also require integration into your existing information infrastructure, analysis and distribution of the information, and finally, the calculation of business decisions on the grounds of that information and the analysis of same. This is the "intelligence" part of the formula.

Most of the value-added in manufacturing or product companies is created by knowledge-based service activities such as research and development, marketing research, product design, customer service, advertising, or distribution. Winning firms are organizations that most successfully master the business issues critical to their performance, and develop the most precise understanding of definitions of value and creation of value. Competitive advantage has a lot to do with leveraging the knowledge assets of the firm, while at the same time determining how competitors are likely to leverage theirs. The goals of this explanation are many:

Adopt a strategic approach to the use of competitive intelligence; to see the intelligence function as an integral part of strategy formulation Show how competitive intelligence is used by firms to achieve competitive advantage Examine the process, the tools, and the output of CI

A Fortune 500 company survey showed 55 percent make use of competitive information in composing business strategy. Each firm is a leader in its industry and each firm knows its enemies. Companies and industries prosper through improvements in competitiveness, leveraging core competencies, and competitive intelligence is at the core of the objective of improving competitive advantage. Competitive intelligence is the core of competitive strategy Why do evidently great organizations with great products, wise managers, and other successful strengths, go out of business? Economies of scale, the foundation on which big companies have based their dominance in the Industrial Era, is no longer an advantage. Changes in information technology, in the financial system, in just-in-time production techniques, and in the rise of companies offering distribution and support systems which previously only the largest companies could afford -- removing the advantages of being big. The diseconomies of scale - overhead, inflexibility -- are becoming increasingly powerful. Value Of Competitive Intelligence Here are just a few of the questions firms ask themselves when implementing a CI program: How do we most usefully define the company's mission, its strategic intentions, its objectives and its strategic choices? What do we need to know to develop and to select strategies which are not only successful, but sustainable? What new products should we build and which markets should we enter and how? How do we implement our competitive strategy?

Whatever strategic framework the firm chooses to embrace for the management of its business, no one element remains more fundamental to competitive strategy than competitive intelligence. Competitive intelligence is more concerned with doing the right thing, than doing the thing right. The goal of a competitor analysis is to develop a profile of the nature of strategy changes each competitor might make, each competitor's possible response to the range of likely strategic moves other firms could make, and each competitor's likely reaction to industry changes and environmental shifts that might take place. Competitive intelligence should have a single-minded objective -- to develop the strategies and tactics necessary to transfer market share profitably and consistently from specific competitors to the company. A firm which does not rigorously monitor and analyze key competitors is poorly-equipped to compose and deploy effective competitive strategy and this approach leaves the firm and its markets vulnerable to attack. The basis for CI revolves around decisions made by managers about the positioning of a business to maximize the value of the capabilities that distinguish it from its competitors. Failure to collect, analyze and act upon competitive information in an organized fashion can lead to the failure of the firm

itself. What then is competitive intelligence? How do we define it? In what ways does it differ from market research? How is it used to make companies more competitive? Who needs competitive intelligence? How is it managed? How is it produced? How should competitive intelligence be used? By whom? What are its costs? Where does competitive intelligence fit within the strategic management system of the firm? What are the measurable "bottom line" benefits for managers and their organizations? The Chinese military strategist, Sun Tzu, emphasized the need for CI: "Now the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move, and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men, is foreknowledge". The upside of successfully predicting a competitor's future plans are apparent; as are the consequences of making business decisions based on information that is faulty. Competitive intelligence is usually composed of five major areas of endeavor, and is performed under three main approaches in the CI framework: assessment of strategies competitor perceptions effectiveness of current operations competitor capabilities long-term market prospects

Strategic intelligence is concerned mainly with competitor analysis or gaining an understanding of a competitor's future goals, current strategy, assumptions held about itself and the industry, and capabilities -- diagnostic components. Intelligence about the firm's major customers, suppliers and partners (in marketing or research and development alliances) is often also of strategic value. Tactical intelligence is generally operational and on a smaller-scale, not so centered on being predictive. Tactical issues include competitors' terms of sale, their price policies and the plans they have for changing the way in which they differentiate one or more of their products from yours. Middle-level marketing and sales managers number among some of the main users of tactical intelligence. They want to know how to win the day, today. Counter intelligence is defending company secrets. Every firm has competitors as interested in knowing your plans as you are in knowing theirs, maybe even more so. Often, this area of endeavor will involve security and information technology, but others are often overlooked, such as hiring and firing strategies, to contain competitor opportunities within the firm. Competitive intelligence is the determination of solutions to these principle factors and determinants of ongoing competitive advantage: What is the basis of competition Where the firm competes Who does the competitor compete against How does the firm compete

CI is focused on decision making Seldom do people realize that business, just like life is merely a series of decisions. And global firms have

a growing need for the necessary information on which to base decisions concerning the conduct and development of each of their firm's strategic objectives, and the protection of their organizations against threats from their competitors. Purpose & Role of Intelligence in Business Intelligence is both a process and a product -- an analytical process that transforms tumultuously gathered competitor and market information into actionable knowledge about competitors' capabilities, intentions, performance, and position; as well as the final product of that process. The focus of market research tends to be on the problems associated with the profitable marketing of a firm's products and services. The scope of competitive intelligence is far broader. Competitive intelligence is a value-added concept that layers over the top of business development, market research and strategic planning. The research objectives of a competitive intelligence project will often involve issues such as: the manufacturing capabilities of the competitor; analysis of alliances and/or joint ventures entered into by competitors; the competitor's future plans and strategies for specific markets, or product lines; reasons behind changes in the corporate or business unit strategy, et cetera. In today's global enterprise, CI happens at two levels -- corporate and business unit. Corporate strategy concerns two different questions: what businesses the corporation should be in and how the corporate office should manage the array of business units. And, competitive strategy is concerned with how to create competitive advantage in each of the businesses in which a company competes based upon core competencies. The Cycle of Competitive Intelligence The CIA describes the intelligence cycle as "the process by which raw information is acquired, gathered, transmitted, evaluated, analyzed and made available as finished intelligence for policymakers to use in decision-making and action." There are five steps which constitute this cycle: planning and direction collection and research processing and storage analysis and production dissemination and delivery

There are seven questions to be answered prior to making investment decisions in CI: what do we need to know? what do we already know? why do we need to know it? when do we need to know it? what will we do with the intelligence once we have it? what will it cost to get it? what could it cost not to get it?

CI's Final Product The product of the intelligence cycle, is evaluated information. It is finished intelligence, packaged in a format appropriate as much to the intelligence itself, as it is to the customer for the intelligence, the decision-maker. In practice, the intelligence product is unlikely to be created from perfect input. We cannot truly and accurately predict the future until events have already taken place and it's too late. The firm finds itself in a position where it can only react to the competitor's move; it has lost the advantage it might have had if the right intelligence had been available earlier. So, although we can't know for certain the minutiae associated with exact details, we can discover plans and roughly-hewn strategies. CI's real value is to provide managers with the organizational tool to learn what the competitor will do, not what the competitor has already done. Ethics and ethical behavior are concerns here and since the area is usually perceived as positive to a company's reputation and competitiveness, it would not be useful for a firm to undertake its intelligence activities without regard to ethical or legal considerations. Everything a firm needs to know about the competition can be obtained by legally available means. The cost of stepping over the line -- into the black -- are far too severe, and unnecessary. What are the bottom line benefits of CI? Improved market knowledge, improved cross-functional relationships in the organization, greater confidence in making strategic plans, and improvements in product quality versus the competition. In short, better business performance through doing things better. Arik R. Johnson is Managing Director of the CI consultancy Aurora WDC, where he is a consultant, trainer, writer and speaker on Competitive Intelligence for clients in the Healthcare, Financial Services, Telecommunications, Media, Information Technology, and Manufacturing Industry Sectors. He can be reached via email (arik@aurorawdc.com) or on the Web (http://www.aurorawdc.com).

organizational analysis, in management science, the study of the processes that characterize all kinds of organizations, including business firms, government agencies, labour unions, and voluntary associations such as sports clubs, charities, and political parties. Any organization is a social unit with three properties: (1) it is a corporate (or group) actor, (2) it claims a special and limited purpose (such as making profits or providing medical care), and (3) its creators intend it to last beyond the accomplishment of a single action, if not indefinitely. Modern cultures are marked by an increase in the importance, influence, and power of organizations. Consequently, contemporary studies in social science and management have emphasized the analysis of organizations. Yet much of the research is narrowly focused on the properties associated with particular types of organizations, such as hospitals, prisons, government agencies, businesses, schools, and churches. While many of its findings are associated with business management, the field of organizational analysis is far more general: it studies the processes that apply to all kinds of organizations. One goal of such inquiry is the identification of more-effective management strategies. See also business organization.

Origins of the discipline

Contemporary organizational analysis and management science owe much of their early development to the German sociologist Max Weber (18641920), who originated the scientific study of organizations. In work examining the relationship between bureaucracy and modernization (eventually published as Theory of Social and Economic Organization; 1947), Weber attributed the rise of organizations to the expansion of markets, to developments in the law, and especially to changes in the nature of authority. The term authority applies to situations in which one person willingly accepts the direction of another. Until modern times, authority was inherited, meaning that princes begat princes and peasants begat peasants. Weber identified the institutional structure of a new rational-legal authority, observing that rights of control increasingly derived from expertise rather than lineage. He documented the ways in which this development, which he called rationalization, underlay the rise of the modern state bureaucracy. According to Weber, organizations were able to develop unparalleled calculability and efficiency by combining two structures: (1) a system of explicit rules, upheld by clearly marked jurisdictions between offices and by permanent files documenting the processing of cases, and (2) a unique division of labour. The latter structure gave rise to the modern bureaucrata person who was required to be an expert in the relevant rules and who had to be shielded from inappropriate influences to guarantee fairness and objectivity. This shift away from tradition and inheritance permanently changed the nature of organizations. Weber thought that these two structures would cause organizations to follow, invariably and automatically, the objectives set down by political authorities. One of Webers contemporaries, the German-born Italian sociologist Robert Michels, vigorously disputed Webers claim that organizations would pursue official objectives in machinelike fashion. According to Michelss iron law of oligarchy, the top leaders of organizationseven those that are member-controlledtend to develop a strong personal interest in maintaining their powers and privileges. Michels held that self-interest prevents such leaders from doing anything that would risk the survival of the organizationeven if this means subverting the organizations original goals and principles. Michels made this claim in an attempt to explain why the leaders of the officially internationalist and antiwar German Social Democratic Party strongly supported Germanys declaration of war in 1914. The essential point of the Weber-Michels debate has not been settled; questions persist over the degree to which the pursuit of official goals characterizes organizational action. Does the creation of organizations (such as churches, investment syndicates, or human rights groups) for the achievement of some collective goal subtly shape the agendas that will be pursued? This questionwhether official or personal leadership is more influentialhas considerable practical significance, because social movements (such as pacifism and environmentalism) almost always take shape as organizational structures in contemporary societies. Organizational analysis

identifies ways in which the personal goals of these groups inform their respective organizational structures. While German scholars were examining the rise of modern organizations within a broad sociological perspective, American engineers and management consultants were initiating the study of the management of work in industrial settings. Close examination of work groups revealed that routine patterns of behaviour (informal organization) often did not match the organizational charts or other official depictions of the organization (formal organization). These findings led researchers to identify and describe patterns of informal organization. Their investigations, which have become part of the core literature of organizational analysis, demonstrated unequivocally that participation in organizations is influenced strongly by social ties and by unofficial networks of communication. (See collective behaviour.)

Theoretical developments
As organizational analysis developed into a distinct field of inquiry in the late 1940s, research in the United States progressed in two theoretical directions. One became known as the Carnegie School, because its central figures, the American social scientists Herbert A. Simon and James G. March, taught at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). Their research, published in Organizations (1958), applied general principles of behavioral science to action within organizations, acknowledging that, while humans intend to be rational in their decision making, actual conditions impose a certain amount of subjectivity. Simon and March took the position that decision makers, while intendedly rational, face such great uncertainty that their actions cannot be understood by standard models of rational choice (i.e., decision theory). The Carnegie approach defined the central problem of organizations as managing the uncertainties inherent in complex work. For example, the administrative man (such as the bureaucratic official depicted by Weber) goes about solving problems by relying on a highly routinized search for satisfactory (but not necessarily optimal) actions. The work of Simon and March set the agenda for subsequent research on organizational learning and, more specifically, on the relationship between learning and the adaptability of organizations. The second theoretical approach, known as institutionalism, focused on the organization as a whole. The American sociologist and legal scholar Philip Selznick, like Michels, emphasized the nonrational aspects of organizations. Using the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) as an example, he argued that one of the most important features of organizations is the tendency for structures and processes to become infused with value beyond the technical requirements at hand. (TVA and the Grass Roots: A Study in the Sociology of Formal Organization [1949].) That is to say, an organizations structures and processes tend to take on new meanings that are unrelated to the reasons they were adopted in the first place. This is the sense in which organizations become institutionalized and structures resist change. Selznick also believed, as did institutionalist sociologists such as the American Talcott Parsons, that all organizations have a crucial need to gain support from key constituencies in the larger social system. The task of constituency building and networking is the basic job responsibility of top managers. Selznick documented a classic example of such efforts in his study of overtures by officials of the TVA to the leaders of local environmental groups. Because they had invited

environmentalists to take part in the utilitys decision-making process, TVA managers put themselves in a better position to handle public criticism of the TVAs mission.

Special topics
Contingency theory, an approach that grew out of the Carnegie tradition, gained in popularity during the 1960s and 70s. Contingency theorists disputed the assumption that a single form of organization is best in all circumstances. Instead, they claimed that the most appropriate form is the one that is best suited to the kinds of action the organization undertakes. For instance, Webers model of bureaucracy is an appropriate design for an organization that processes a high volume of routine transactionsa common characteristic of large government organizations, for example. Organizations differ greatly in their modes of production. In Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice (1965), the English management scholar Joan Woodward argued that an organizations methods are determined by the class of core technologies that characterize its work: small batch (where the work must be adapted to the peculiarities of the current batch e.g., emergency medical care and residential construction), large batch (such as automobile manufacturing), or continuous processing (as in petroleum refining). Working within Woodwards definitional framework, American sociologist James D. Thompson showed that, because the characteristic forms of task uncertainty vary by type, so also does optimal organizational design. Representing the high point in the development of contingency theory, Thompsons thesis, published in Organizations in Action (1967), holds that good organizational designs are those that buffer core technologies from disturbances, such as interruptions in scheduling or inventory shortages.
Challenges to contingency theory

Two subsequent schools of research took issue with the claim of contingency theorists that organizational designs are shaped by internal constraints. The school known as neoinstitutionalism revived the institutionalist view that the key organizational problem is that of gaining and maintaining support from external constituencies. An important current in the institutional revival, represented in the work of the American sociologist John W. Meyer, argued that organizational designs, especially those aspects that are observable to outsiders, play an important ceremonial role. By adopting the organizational designs favoured by experts (such as professors of management, management consultants, and professional bodies), an institution signals its conformity to the prevailing norms, thereby gaining approval from influential external groups. The designs favoured by experts, however, often fail to support the details of the work that organizations must accomplish, because the reality of work is invariably more complicated than what can be recognized in simplified organizational designs. According to Meyer, organizations therefore face a choice between using designs that fit internal needs and using those that meet the standards dictated by external groups. This theory thus explains the characteristic discrepancy between informal and formal organizational structures. Much of the research inspired by neoinstitutionalism examines the diffusion of organizational design elements such as quality circles (continuous quality improvement), incentive

compensation (e.g., motivational programs or bonuses), affirmative-action policies, deconglomeration (the breakup of large corporations into independent entities), and so forth. This research shows that the adoption of design elements within an organization is influenced less by considerations of internal contingency than by social factors. This is consistent with the ceremonial perspective mentioned above. Organizations tend to adopt design elements from two sources: influential external groups, such as competing firms, and other institutions to which the organization may be tied (e.g., through shared board members). The second major environmentalist school, organizational ecology, builds on parallels with bioecology and evolutionespecially in its application of notions such as selection and adaptation to organizational change. This approach follows the lead of institutionalists such as Selznick in assuming that the core features of an organization (those that shape its identity and determine its structure) are subject to strong inertial forces. In their work Organizational Ecology (1989), the American sociologists Michael T. Hannan and John Freeman argued that reliability and accountabilitythe very properties that make organizations the favoured social forms in modern societyalso discourage, and in some cases even prevent, organizations from changing their core features. The authors suggested that large changes in the world of organizations have come about at least partly through selectionthat is, through the rise of organizations that embody new forms and new designs and through the demise of organizations whose forms were ill-suited to a changing environment. In emphasizing selection rather than adaptation as the primary process through which organizations thrive or fail, it is nonetheless true that radical changes in an established organizations core features can increase its risk of failure. The inertia that tends to characterize most large organizations can prevent them from adapting to new conditions (such as changes in the nature of the workforce, technological improvements, and challenges from new competitors). By the same token, these traits also provide opportunities for entrepreneurs outside the established organizations. When possible, nimble organizations that meet the challenges of a new environment can establish a strong position in the market before the established, dominant entities are able to enter the scene.
Other influences in organizational development

The key insights of organizational ecology can be traced to the discovery of a kind of imprinting in the world of organizations. In the behavioral sciences, imprinting refers to the process by which influences experienced during a given developmental period can have lasting