Competitive intelligence the new information science funtion

Competitive intelligence (CI) is critical for organisations to stay abreast of changing market conditions and avoid costly mistakes. CI is not a new phenomenon but can be traced back to the writings of Sun Tzu who several centuries ago wrote, The Art of War, which provided a detailed description of how to develop intelligence for military applications (Sun, 1988 in Calif and Wright, 2008). To date CI has gathered much momentum as a valuable strategy to provide valuable knowledge rather, for making decisive decisions. Oder (2001) mentioned that CI has long been practiced in some form and its increasing importance may be seen in the growth of The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), which has increased from 150 members in 1986 to nearly 7 000 in 1999. Equally vital is information science that has dramatically changed due to CI even though they encompass similar activities. This work endeavours to discuss the values of CI in the perspective of information science practice. However the terms competitive intelligence and information science are to be defined to provide working definitions for this work.

Oder (2001) opined that CI involves not only the collection of information (from both primary and secondary sources) but also analysis of how that information affects the company’s competitive environment and communication of that anal to decision-makers. According to Kahaner (1996) CI is a systematic programme (sic) for gathering and analysis information about your competitors’ activities and general business trends to further your own company’s goals. A more elaborate definition of CI was coined by Gilad and Fuld (1998) in Alexandra, Andreea and Anca (2002) that CI is the action of ethically and legally gather, analyse and communicate information about third party players in one’s competitive arena – from competitors, to suppliers, customers, influencing parties, distributors and so forth to be used by companies in their planning and decision-making. In addition Prescott and Gibbons (1993) in Trimberger (2010) maintained that CI is the “evolving process by which the management teams assess the evolution of its industry and capabilities and behaviour of its current and potential competitors to assist in maintaining and developing a competitive advantage. A working definition by Santos and Corriea (2010) that CI is,

. . . the conversion of data and information, gathered by an organisation from its external and internal environment, into intelligence that supports the organisational decision-making process. . . . process of monitoring the competitive environment and analysing the findings in the context of internal issues, for the purpose of decision support.

It can be summerised that CI is an ongoing activity that gather intelligence with the aim to categorise it for dissemination to users in an easily interpreted form to influence decision-making. The concept of CI has its roots in marketing where it is commonly used to gather data to map marketing plans.

According to Bates (1999) information science (IS) is a field devoted to scientific inquiry and professional practice addressing the problems of effective communication of knowledge and knowledge records among humans in the context of social, institutional and/or individual uses of and needs for information.  He further outlined that IS is the study of the gathering, organising, storing, retrieving, and dissemination of information. The IS wiki identified IS as consisting of the knowledge and understanding of how to collect, classify, manipulate, store, retrieve and disseminate any type of information. The Wiki maintained that IS focuses on understanding problems from the perspective of the stakeholders involved and then applying information and other technologies as needed. According to the Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science (2004) IS is the systematic study and analysis of the sources, development, collection, organisation, dissemination, evaluation, use, and management of information in all its forms, including the channels (formal and informal) and technology used in its communication.  According to Zins (2006) IS is;

An interdisciplinary field concerned with the theoretical and practical concepts, as well as the technological, laws, and industry dealing with knowledge transfer and the sources, generation, organisation, representation, processing, distribution, communication, and uses of information as well as communications among users and their behaviour as they seek to satisfy their information needs.

Simply stated information science is the practice that is concerned with the gathering, manipulation, classification, storage, and retrieval of recorded knowledge.

The given definitions show similar activities in CI and IS that are critical in pronouncing them as meta-disciplines that collect, analysing and disseminate information for utilisation. The fact that is shared between IS and CI is that they recognise information as a critical aspect of life in the 21^st century contributing immensely in the knowledge economy. Above all the disciplines adhere that information is contributing as the fourth key component driving economies of several nations and that there is need to develop information systems that can acquire, organise, maintain and disseminate information with minimum effort and costs to users through adjusting the traditional perspectives substantially. Aspects of CI that are common in IS are related to information retrieval which in the disciplines play a critical if not a substantial role in the quest for locating the information fundamental in the emergence of an information-based economy. Moon (2000) maintained that few organisations have truly integrated information into their strategies and planning processes in a substantial way to obtain sustainable competitive advantage.

According to Mooers (1951) in Saracevic (1995) information retrieval (IR) embraces the intellectual aspects of the description of information and its specification for search and also whatever systems, techniques or machines that are employed to carry out the operations. IR is relevant in the age where information explosion has continued unabated with the evolution of sophisticated electronic databases, texts and networks that has prompted information professionals to incorporate CI to better manage information for competitive advantage in organisations. CI becomes invaluable in the collecting of information for use in organisation to support and lead management in the decisions and actions. Trimberger (2000) identify IR as the selection of resources, the evaluation of the quality, biases and authenticity of those sources, finding data that is useful. Due to sophisticated methods of IR demonstrated in CI, “ it has been seen as a critical function by senior management at firms as it harness the information, within and external to an organisation, and culls it down to nuggets of intelligence – intelligence that is delivered to management for action” (Moon, 2000). The value of CI has been articulated by Havenga and Botha (2000) who stated that;

In order for organisations to remain globally competitive, new tools for decision-making are required. Of these tools, it is internationally recognised that Competitive Intelligence (CI) is fast becoming a norm rather than the exception to assist management with decision-making in the modern knowledge-based organisation.

To numerous organisations CI is generally relevant to the competitiveness through providing sustainable competitive advantage. The value of CI in modern IS can not be overruled as a synergy between the two promotes availability of intelligence critical for organisations to remain or become truly globally competitive. According to Santos and Correia (2010) CI can be seen as an information processing routine that looks forward to prepare the organisation to compete (and win)  in changing environments, whose dynamism is the result of systematic monitoring. Santos and Correia (2010) further maintain that the process of acquiring, and structuring information and knowledge are central as an activity within broader planning process. The practice of modern IS can be enhanced through CI to enable organisations to “identify new opportunities leading to innovation and ultimately benefiting the competitive status of the organisation” (Havenga and Botha, 2000).

Miller (1996) identified that the components of the intelligence process include identification of users and their needs, the collection and analysis of information and dissemination of intelligence to decision makers and for strategist. It become clear that CI is a narrow activity in IS that sieve for relevant information from both primary and secondary sources to capture and communicate this information on a consistent basis with minimal cost. With the increasing need for information in organisations information professionals are required to be competitive information leaders utilising both CI and IS to communicate information for strategic purposes and remain purposeful in their capacities. Chochrek (2000) opined that CI is the ability to gather the facts, see into the future, and convince your audience that you hold the key. Perhaps a definition of information professional would make an impact in discussing the value of CI in modern IS practice. According to Lindsey-King (1998) in Havenga and Both (2000), “an information professional can be defined as the individual who is primarily responsible for harnessing the organisation’s information sources and information capabilities to enable it to learn and adapt to its changing environment. In most cases the information professional add value to IS through employing intelligence to provide information by responding with a sense of urgency to critical information needs. However, in order to accurately assess the exact extent and nature of the information professional’s involvement and responsibility towards the delivery of competitive intelligence it is necessary to consider the existing skills of the information professional in comparison to the skills needed by the competitive intelligence professional (Havenga and Both 2000).  Correia (2005:38) in Chisita (2011) observed that the new information driven economy presents insurmountable challenges to information professionals as they have to rebrand, redefine their roles and titles, developing skills and identifying functions and tasks to adopt and eliminate, developing relationships with different categories of clients and colleagues, establishing a new process and gathering and applying new resources and techniques. Nevertheless, the instrumental participation of the information professionals in CI and IS relate to the communicating of the information to the users despite their skills and competences.

The value of CI is attributed to the communication of intelligence that is required by managers which is an enhancement to IS which communicate mainly information which when collected form knowledge or intelligence. Communicating intelligence is the prime function of CI that is necessary in the knowledge-based economy for decision-making particularly. Miller (1996) noted that the final phase of the intelligence process consists of communicating the analysis effectively. Trimberger (2000) also noted that communicating the CI product to the customer is comparable to delivering information to a client must be done in a timely fashion and in an effective format. Saracevic (1995) noted that social and economic roles of information [intelligence rather] activities are becoming more and more pronounced; their strategic importance in increasing. Further contributions by Saracevic (2000) are that there are fundamental economic and social changes afoot in which knowledge and information is becoming the base, the prime valuation, for economy and even society as a whole. This is further expounded by Drucker (1994) in Saracevic (2000) that;

The basic economic resource - “the means of production” to use the economist’s term – is no longer capital, nor natural resource (the economist’s land), nor “labour.” It is and will be knowledge . . . . Value is now created by “productivity” and “innovation” both applications of knowledge at work. The leading social group of the knowledge society will be “knowledge workers” – knowledge executives who know how to allocate knowledge to productive use, just as the capitalist knew how to allocate capital to productive use; knowledge professionals, knowledge employees . . . .

In this view the communicating of intelligence should be well calculated distributing the intelligence product to those who requested it as it is “critical to understanding of competitors’ actions and customers’ desires” (Moon 2000).

IS been drastically changed by information and communication technologies thereby increasing the capacity to store information with out the need for physical object. Several authors opine that IS comprise “library without walls”; its “collection” is the entire world of information and the “information scientist” acquires, organises, and disseminates that information to help people meet their needs. In actual fact, this purpose can be seen as a defining characteristic of both IS and CI. However the significance of CI is that it identifies threats. Havenga and Both (2000) suggested that CI should be positioned in the organisation to identify threats in the external environment capable of impacting negatively on the future of the company or organisation. Intelligence is required definitely to give the organisation a competitive advantage over other companies for example a joint venture partnership, innovation and probably for research and development.  According to Havenga and Both (2000) a new intelligence process is required, keeping in mind the fundamental differences and understanding the needs of business to be proactive and to search for new opportunities.  The understanding that CI supports the strategic process in companies addressing to top-level management if the company is still competitive provide value to modern IS functions. At most the intelligence is used to defend against competitors attempting to achieve surprise, the creation of new advantages, the changing of the rules of engagement and the luring of partners (Havenga and Both, 2000).

The usefulness of CI in modern organisations can not be overstated bearing in mind that the knowledge-based economy require knowledge to remain competitive and for informed decisions. CI and IS share similar characteristics that allow information professionals remain relevant to the organisations to play the influential information role more in a fashionable manner of resenting the intelligence in helpful format. Basically the value of CI is critical to the survival of the organisation and to compete with other companies in a sound more informed position.  In most cases CI may be subsumed under the broader concept of IS even though CI analyses business events outside the company. However the bottom line is that intelligence is gathered, analysed and disseminated to the end user more similarly as the IS processes. The perfect features of CI and IS are that the information professional do the gathering then the CI professionals do the cool neat stuff like placing it in the bigger picture (Oder, 2001). The work summarise that CI is an ongoing process that support the decision-making at top level management.  It further summarise that CI has an imperative value in the practice of IS that require information professionals to have immaculate skills and good knowledge of internal and external sources of intelligence. An interesting observation was that the knowledge [intelligence] continuum is from data to information, critical in IS to knowledge [intelligence] which is the basis of CI.

Reference

Alexandru, G; Andreea, Mora and Anca, S. (2002) “Competitive intelligence.” Studies in Business and Economics, p. 101 – 102.

Calof, Jonathan and Wright, Sheila (2008) “Competitive intelligence: a practitioner, academic and interdisciplinary perspective.” European Journal of Marketing, vol. 42; no. 7/8, p. 717 – 730.

Chisita, C. T. (2011) Information science module LIS101. Harare: Zimbabwe Open University.

Havenga, Johann and Botha, Deonie (2000) “Developing competitive intelligence in the knowledge-based organisation.” Available at http://www.sveiby.com/articles.htm (Accessed 23/03/2011).

Kahaner, Larry (1996) “The Basics of competitive intelligence.” Available at http://www.kahaner.com/ (Accessed 24/03/2011).

Miller, Jerry (1996) “Information science and competitive intelligence: possible collaborators?” Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, p. 11 – 13. (Accessed 21/03/2011).

Moon, Mary (2000) “Effective use of information and competitive intelligence.” Available at http://www.sla.org/content/Shop/Information/infoonline/2000/feb00/moon.cfm (Accessed 19/03/2011).

Oder, Norman (2001) “The Competitive intelligence opportunity.” Library Journal, p. 42 – 44.

Saracevic, Tafko (1995) “Interdisciplinary nature of information science.” Cie`ncia da Informacia, vol. 24; no. 1, p. 34 – 37.

Santos, Miriam and Corriea, Ana (2010) “Competitive intelligence as a source of competitive advantage: an exploratory study of the Portuguese biotechnology industry.” Proceedings of the European Conference on Knowledge Management, p. 867 – 879.

Trimberger, Karen (2000) “Preparing for the CI role: a student perspective.” Information Outlook Online. Available at http://www.sla.org/content/Shop/Information/infoonline/2000/feb00/trimberg.cfm (Accessed 23/03/2011).

Zins, Chaim (2006) “Redefining information science: from “information science” to “knowledge science.” Journal of Documentation, vol. 62; no. 4, p. 441 – 461.