Strategy-Oriented
Competitive Intelligence
Strategy-oriented competitive intelligence is CI provided in
support of strategic-level, as distinguished from tactical, decision making.
This means providing the higher levels of management with information on the
competitive, economic, legal, and political environment in which your firm and
its competitors now operate as well as the environment in which they will
operate in the future. In practice, this may include information on products
and/or services that differentiate one competitor from another or even an
assessment of a criminal environment in which a firm may find itself
involuntarily operating.
Strategy-Oriented CI also can involve developing CI on
candidates for potential mergers and acquisitions or alliances and partnerships.
Most CI, as practiced in the 1980s and early 1990s, including much of what fell
within the category of "business intelligence," can be properly considered
strategy-oriented CI.