What is CI
CI stands for Competitive Intelligence.
The concept “intelligence” commonly denotes the
ability to find one's way around quickly in new situations.
CI marks the continuous process of the legitimate, i.e. legal and
ethical collection, evaluation and contextualization of piece-meal
information in the economic life about the competitive surroundings as
well as their concretion and transformation in accurate and
strategically relevant knowledge for the purpose of prospective
entrepreneurial decision-making.
BI means Business Intelligence and marks the technological support of
these processes. A CI/BI system may be described consequently as an
entrepreneurial “early warning system”.
CI/BI includes the coverage of the information requirement (content) as such on the one hand, however on the other hand, to manage these contents logistically cleverly and to integrate them into continuous and systematic decision hierarchies, -portals etc.
Marketing Intelligence
As Gayer Consulting, we also speak synonymously of Marketing alignment Intelligence (MI) instead of CI or BI.
The classic market research admittedly occupies itself traditionally more strongly with “customer research”. Permanently changing markets, above all the still increasing information overflow as well as the on-going globalization, however, necessitate innovative concepts overcoming the pure distribution function, e.g., strategic procurement questions or environmental evaluations (see also Marketing Consulting).
Within the framework of the strategic triangle “We-Customer-Competitor”, a high value is allotted to the systematic knowledge of the competitive surroundings. The development and review of accordingly integral and customized marketing concepts demand the unlimited access to all relevant data.
To put it comprehensively and concisely: “Intelligent marketing necessitates marketing intelligence”.
Contrary to wide-spread views, particularly in Germany:
- CI is no economic espionage: Competitive Intelligence uses exclusively legal methods as well as ethically perfect behavior as written down in the code of Ethics of SCIP. The goal is the search and processing of publicly accessible knowledge as "open source intelligence" and comprises whatever independent experts find out as well.
- CI is not merely information brokerage: In contrast to an information broker a Competitive Intelligence consultant regards himself as an active and creative advisor of the decision-making bodies, who especially taps primary sources. Whereas the information broker procures generally relevant secondary information in one-off jobs, the CI consultant helps not only with the information elicitation but is interested in establishing and working of a sensitive early warning system in the enterprise; this implies on the other hand the implementation of technical procedures (e.g., portals).
- CI is not only competition observation: Beyond the pure (strategical) competition observation, a considerable surplus value in the strategic anticipation originates through the creative tapping of miscellaneous accessible sources and by means of subsequent intelligent combination of piece-meal information. Where complex information concretion and deducible strategic recommendations are concerned, the activity spectrum of the CI consultant borders on that of the classic business consultant, see consulting.
CI in Germany
According to polls, 95 percent of all Fortune 500-enterprises carry out competitive intelligence systematically. The number of CI experts constantly rises to presently about 8 000 world-wide.
Germany is still a developing country in this respect. Correspondingly, the concept of Competitive Intelligence is not yet as common as in the English-speaking world, in France, Japan or also in Scandinavia.
However, this also means that the potential is especially high here in respect to global competition to work on the existing deficit. So, a rapid increase in interest in CI is to be noticed in Germany presently. Despite stubborn and language-specific scruples concerning CI being equated with espionage in the local press, see myths, more and more German large-scale companies employ personnel dedicated to CI.
Simultaneously, the amount of outsourcing of intelligence services increases world-wide as in Germany continually (advantages of outsourcing: Benefits).
Clients buying CI projects are particularly managers of areas like Business Development as well as members of the executive board, Marketing managers and Brand managers in multinational companies.