Corporate Intelligence

Corporate intelligence (synonymous with competitive intelligence (CI)) provides organisations with intelligence required for decision-making. It looks at the external business environment including competitors and the market. Distinct from industrial espionage, and following a strict ethical code, the discipline’s origins can be traced back for centuries, although it only came to prominence in the 1980s following publications by Michael Porter and others. The CI cycle describes how organisations collect and report intelligence with the KIT (key intelligence topics) process linking to this by defining a methodology for identifying and prioritising organisational intelligence needs. Intelligence collection uses both secondary research approaches, looking at online and published material, and primary research interviewing individuals with information relevant to the intelligence topic. Competitor response profiling, scenario analysis, war gaming and many marketing analysis techniques are used to analyse gathered intelligence for both short-term tactical and longer-term strategic decisions. Competitive intelligence is communicated using a range of methods with the construction of competitor profiles being a standard approach. Such profiles are customised depending on the intelligence requirements, the recipient and their seniority or job role. The aim of corporate intelligence is to ensure organisations are better at matching customer needs and anticipating changes in the business environment than their competitors.