For specialists and nonspecialists alike, this perceptive selection of the newest and up and coming tools and techniques of competitive intelligence, offering a well balanced combination of theory and practice. It shows how advances in computers and technology have accelerated progress in CI management, and the ways in which CI has affected (and been affected by) all major business functions and processes. It explores applications to organizations of various sizes and types, in both the public and private sectors. Editors Fleisher and Blenkhorn link leading-edge research in CI to advances in current practice, and balance pragmatic against conceptual concerns. Analysts, strategists and organizational decision makers at higher levels will find the book especially valuable, as they seek to make sense of the business environment and assess their organizations' evolving, dynamic places in it. The pace of change in today's global, competitive economy is greater than at any time in recorded history. Thus, as never before, companies need better tools for business and competitive analysis. The book surveys applications of CI that are critical to business processes, such as mergers and acquisitions, and to evolving industries, such as biotechnology. They focus on how "push and pull" Internet technologies affect data gathering and analysis and how CI can be managerially assessed using multiple evaluative approaches, unavailable until now in the public domain. They then turn to the future, and lay out some startling yet plausible viewpoints on what the next frontiers of competitive intelligence will be and how organizations can and must ready themselves for them.
Dr. Craig S. Fleisher is Chief Learning Officer at Aurora WDC, one of the globe's top professional services firms specializing in the areas of business, competitive, market and strategic intelligence. He is also a member of the graduate faculty for the Executive MScom at Università della Svizzera italiana in Switzerland and Docent in Business Information Management, Tampere University of Technology, Finland. His PhD was earned from the Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh.
Previously, he was the Founding Dean of Business and Public Affairs and Professor of Management (Strategy & Entrepreneurship), College of Coastal Georgia USA, President of the international association of Strategy and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP - Alexandria, VA), inaugural chair of the Competitive Intelligence Foundation (CIF - Washington, DC), and Editor of the Journal of Competitive Intelligence & Management. Also a former MBA director, university research leadership chair and endowed research chair holder, he has been a member of university faculties in over half a dozen countries. His prior business experience was in strategy consulting, mortgage banking management and real estate appraisal.
A recognized global expert who has helped many leading multinational enterprises and institutions improve their intelligence capabilities, public affairs management, performance measurement and/or analysis processes, Craig has authored or edited over 10 books + many translations and published scores of refereed papers and book chapters. He has been an invited speaker, facilitated workshops or keynoted meetings in over forty countries, supervised dozens of graduate theses, and has been a regular recipient of executive education and university teaching awards. He contributes on the editorial boards of many international scholarly journals such as Journal of Public Affairs (Wiley), Business & Society (Sage), Intl. Jnl. of Technology Intelligence & Planning(Inderscience), Asia Pacific PR Journal (Canberra), and the S. African Jnl. of Information Management, among others.
He is a long-time active member of several international associations including the Academy of Management, Golden Key Intl. Honour Society (GKIHS)for whom he was recognized as a national Advisor of the Year, Founding Member and former executive officer of the Intl. Assn. of Business and Society (IABS), Life Member of the Intl. Assn. of Business Communicators (IABC), Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, Academy of Marketing, and Canadian Who's Who, among others. He has received numerous recognitions for his contributions including being an international SCIP Meritorious Award winner and Fellow, top Canadian MBA professor, multi-time outstanding faculty member or instructor at several universities, and best conference paper awards.
