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ON COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE

INTRODUCTION Competitive intelligence (CI) has become a very important source of information for business planning and other activities. CI is generally considered to be the set of legal and ethical methods used to gather information about competitor activities from public and private sources. CI provides information about the present and future behavior of competitors, suppliers, customers, technologies, acquisitions, markets, and the general business environment. Many companies, such as General Motors, Eastman Kodak, Motorola, IBM, Citicorp, Proctor and Gamble, and J.C. Penney, have organized formal CI units. This article discusses the results of a recent survey of CIOs and CEOs on competitive intelligence practices in their firms. The survey requested all respondents to characterize their firms with respect to industry type, company size in annual revenue, and the extent of non-U.S. operations. The project received a total of 137 valid cases from companies representing 17 industry classifications. Manufacturing companies responded most often, followed by financial/insurance and consumer products P A Y O F F I D E A