Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches [Hardcover]

John E. Prescott (Author), Stephen H. Miller (Author), The Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471401781 | ISBN-13: 978-0471401780 | Publication Date: February 15, 2001 | Edition: 1st

Tested-in-the-trenches competitive intelligence techniques used at today's top companies

This book brings together the best thinking and practices in competitive intelligence (CI) currently being used at many of today's most successful companies. Featuring contributions from leading industry executives, it covers CI strategies across a wide range of business functions, including marketing and sales, market research and forecasting, product development, and teams.

• The only book on the subject offering a comprehensive view of CI, from the CEO down to the tactical CI team
• Numerous case studies vividly illustrating cutting-edge CI techniques in action

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 511 b.c.

Like armies in battle, business organizations must have a thorough understanding of what they are up against to succeed. Competitive intelligence (CI) is the legal and ethical process of collecting, analyzing, and applying information about the capabilities, vulnerabilities, and intentions of the competition. Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence assembles the best thinking and most successful techniques from market leaders on how firms can use CI to outwit, outmaneuver, and outperform current, emerging, and potential competitors.

This compilation of articles from the Competitive Intelligence Review showcases practicable, field-proven approaches to competitive intelligence that can be applied across a variety of business areas. Featuring contributions from leading executives such as Motorola's Robert Galvin, John Pepper of Procter & Gamble, and Gary Costly of Kellogg, the outstanding corporate case studies cover CI applications in sales and marketing, market research and forecasting, new product development, and teams.

Former NutraSweet CEO Robert E. Flynn explains why CI is worth up to $50 million a year to his company, and Kellogg's Costly reveals how CI helped the cereal giant discover and rectify internal weaknesses that were being exploited by competitors. Franz Tessun explains how Daimler-Benz uses scenario analysis and early warning systems to track the competition's technological advances. Also featured are detailed models of competitive technical intelligence (CTI) operations, frequently used by tech-driven enterprises.

In the increasingly competitive business environment of the twenty-first century, getting a "leg up" on the competition is no longer enough. Successful companies need comprehensive programs designed to anticipate and trump the competition's every move. They need Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence.

From the Back Cover

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."-Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 511 b.c.

How do companies like IBM, Xerox, Motorola, Procter & Gamble, and NutraSweet dominate the competitive situation in their markets year after year? Each of these market leaders relies on an effective, well-organized competitive intelligence (CI) strategy to help them outwit, outmaneuver, and outperform the competition at every turn.

Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence presents the best thinking and most successful techniques from these and other leading firms on how medium- to large-sized companies can strategize and implement a competitive intelligence program across a wide range of business functions. Readers will learn the secrets of the best business intelligence operations as corporate CI leaders explain:
* How to demonstrate the value of CI to management
* How to get your sales force and other "troops" to bolster CI efforts
* Why competitive technical intelligence (CTI) is vital to technology-driven firms
* How to set up a CI resource center on the corporate intranet
* Why identifying key intelligence topics (KITS) can lead to competitive advantage

Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence is an indispensable resource for any organization that wants to take the lead in its market, maximize performance, and keep the competition wondering, "How do they do that?"

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (February 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471401781
• ISBN-13: 978-0471401780
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #839,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice Assortment of Articles, But Seen Them Before, April 28, 2001

By 

Heath C. Sturt (Down Under) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches (Hardcover)

This book is a decent one for your library shelf. It includes a fair variety of articles, quite often featuring widely known names in the CI field. The idea of "proven" and "strategies" may be a bit misleading however, as some of these so-caled proven strategies were really philosphies, tactics or concepts that worked for a short time but were shown to be difficult to sustain. Witness the recent public difficulties at Procter & Gamble or Daimler Benz for example and you'll understand this.

For those people who read or have seen the CI Review, you'll recognize that these chapters first appeared as articles in that venue. Some of the chapters are now several years old, stale, and the individuals, departments or companies involved have undergone major shifts in their approaches to CI and to the topics of these articles. I should note that this doesn't mean that the information is invalid, indeed, it is helpful more often than not. However, "proven" strategies are enduring... some of the ones highlighted here were "practiced" for sure, but "proven" may be a bit of a marketing stretch. I'd still recommend this book to those individuals new to the field, and those who haven't accessed this material before in its other forms.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Here is Amazingly Good, June 1, 2001

By 

Jim Levitas (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches (Hardcover)

As with any anthology, some of the contributions are better than others. But the best case studies in this collection are of real value. In particular, I'd point to the case studies from Shell and other companies that describe how corporate intranets can be used to both collect competitive information from within your firm (sales reps, etc.) and then to make it availalbe firmwide, so that no one gets "blindsided." Any company that's not doing this doesn't understand, as one of the chapters puts it, the overriding importance of CI/Knowledge Management convergence.

I was also amazed by how forthright some of the contributors were, expecially the description of the organizational CI structures at firms such as P&G, Xerox and IBM. I don't know why they're sharing this, but these descriptions are worth the price of the book. Not that you'd want to copy them exactly, but it's vital to know how others organize their efforts in this regard.

And even the more "philosophical" contributions, include Robert Galvin's piece on CI at Motorola, were helpful.

No, it's not a really "how to" book, but it does reveal just how important CI now is to companies in the know, and why others should get onboard.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book, But a Somewhat Overreaching Title, December 15, 2008

By 

Nwankama Nwankama - See all my reviews

This review is from: Proven Strategies in Competitive Intelligence: Lessons from the Trenches (Hardcover)

This book contains very valuable lessons in CI, as well as in strategic and tactical design, which many businesses can certainly benefit from. Some of the cases were very intriguing and quite informative. From all the cases presented, it became apparent that success of CI operations, among other things, requires an intelligence leader at the top level, preferably executive level; strong cooperation among various organizational departments/teams; intelligence expertise; very strong ethics; spirited internal marketing of CI (as strategic and tactical intelligence must be seen as a top priority within the organization), etc. Nonetheless, I believe that a better title should have been something like "Sample Strategies in Competitive Intelligence." While the strategies presented may have worked well at the time for IBM, Xerox, Motorola, Nutrasweet, Avent, Merck, P&G, Intel and Microsoft, I wonder if other companies that take the strategies as a blueprint will experience the same level of successes reported (Nwankama Nwankama).