The Two Divisions of Competitive Intelligence

As we noted in our book, Bottom Line Competitive Intelligence, competitive intelligence (CI), as it is practiced today, has become divided into two major areas, active and passive. ^[1]

• Active CI is that which we most commonly call CI. It involves the development of intelligence on all aspects of businesses and the competitive environment. Active CI processes are those aimed at collecting raw data and analyzing that data to provide finished intelligence. The active CI may be prepared by a CI unit for use by an internal corporate client, by an external consultant or a research firm as an input to a CI unit's reports, or by the same person who will use it. In each case, the production of the intelligence is conducted following a formal, commonly understood process, known as the CI cycle. It is then to be used as an input to improve decision making. Active CI is, in turn, divided into four different types: strategy-oriented, tactics-oriented, target-oriented and technology-oriented.

• Defensive CI is the way we describe the process of protecting your firm against the competitive intelligence efforts of your competitors. Defensive CI processes are heavily dependant on a working knowledge of CI techniques. However, when properly conducted, defensive CI involves CI professionals in an educational or advisory role only. That is, CI professionals use their skills and experience to help their firm determine what kinds of raw data competitors will probably try to capture, teach all company employees to understand what is competitively sensitive information that they should protect, and to understand how to protect that data.