The cutting edge management tool of the nineties, this is the first guide to turning crude information into priceless information. An indispensable map to a competitive new world, this is a practical handbook for turning knowledge into power. Includes 40 charts and tables.
There is very little material available that provides practical, hands-on assistance for the CI professional who is providing CI to one client—his or her employer—and who constitutes the largest single group of CI practitioners in existence. This book meets that need by serving as a desk reference for CI managers to help them understand their own circumstances and determine what works best for them. Competitive intelligence (CI) is now becoming a mature profession. With that maturation comes the need to develop and understand the how's and why's of managing CI, as distinguished from understanding how CI works. There is very little material available that provides practical, hands-on assistance for the CI professional who is providing CI to one client—his or her employer—and who constitutes the largest single group of CI practitioners in existence. This book meets that need by serving as a desk reference for CI managers to help them understand their own circumstances and determine what works best for them. In addition to providing hints on diagnosing individual situations, many forms and checklists that the manager can use immediately are included.
Two of the most prolific and challenging authorities on the topic of competitive intelligence (CI) reflect on and respond to the changes in the field over the last decade. The authors point out that CI users have to change what they are doing, show why they are doing it, and provide ways of doing it. Their book reviews the problems in the development of CI since the 1980s, discusses the impact of the Internet and the rise in use of other secondary sources, and draws from and provides access to the growing body of CI information, knowledge, and literature. Combining a scholarly approach with hands-on advice, McGonagle and Vella have written the first work to guide CI professionals through the emerging literature of their field. Among the important changes in the field the authors cover are: the radical changes in on line database searching and ways in which the Internet has fundamentally modified how we think of accessing data. Their book explores and reports the major body of work from the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, now that more businesses worldwide are using competitive intelligence and either writing about their experiences with it, or joining in new benchmarking studies. The result is newer information on what really works, what doesn't work, and who is doing what with it. The book is thus a starting point for people new to the field of CI as well as a resource to help experienced professionals do their jobs better.
Chosen for their clear, direct relevance to scholars and practitioners in the volatile field of competitive intelligence, the 24 issues evaluated here represent the cutting edge of CI's most pressing concerns. Current, scholarly, pragmatic, and among the first of its kind, this book presents the heart of the field in a way that even the relatively uninitiated can grasp and quickly apply. The authors cover the latest technological advances and their relation to the tools most valued by CI professionals. They also show that despite its enormous range of possibilities, CI has limits. Navigating the ever-changing organizational and marketplace environments is difficult. A key debate involves what should and shouldn't be done to maximize the beneficial power of CI. Fleisher, Blenkhorn, and the book's contributors present the crucial points of this debate. This book is perfect for practitioners seeking guidance, but also as a supplemental text for students in such courses as marketing strategy and planning, business-to-business marketing, and competitive intelligence itself.
In today's complex and dynamic world the need to be informed about what is going on in the environment of the organization is increasing rapidly. To this end, organizations implement a process called competitive intelligence. Competitive intelligence (CI) is about gathering and analyzing environmental information for strategic purposes. However, the noncritical implementation of these tools may lead to an information overload or to environmental myopia. To select the right ICT tools for CI, an organization needs to understand the role of ICT in the CI-process. Information and Communication Technology for Competitive Intelligence addresses this need. It assesses the role and possibilities of ICT in the intelligence activities from different perspectives.
Volume 22 includes two main chapters in both Part A and B. It appears in two parts because all chapters offer great depth in coverage of core issues senior executives must address for long-term survival of the firm: business intelligence, knowledge management, and understanding of the systems dynamics of interfirm behavior.
Traditionally, tapping into the power of competitive intelligence (CI) meant investing in the development of an internal CI unit or hiring outside consultants who specialized in CI. Proactive Intelligence: The Successful Executive's Guide to Intelligence offers an alternative: learn how to do it yourself and how to effectively manage the parts you cannot. The tools and techniques that will enable you to produce your own CI for your consumption are out there, and have been honed by decades of work. But, you cannot just adopt them – you have to adapt them. Why? Because, when you finish reading this book, you will be the data collector, the analyst, and the end-user. Traditional CI is premised on a reactive, two part relationship – a CI professional responding to what an end-user identifies as a need; by doing this yourself you can turn CI from being reactive to being proactive. As the decision-maker, you can get what CI you need, when you need it, and then use it almost seamlessly. Written by two of the foremost experts on CI, Proactive Intelligence: The Successful Executive's Guide to Intelligence: shows where and how CI can help you and your firm, provides practical guidance on how to identify what CI you need, how to find the data you need, and how to analyze it, and discusses how to apply CI to develop competitive- and career- advantages. Each chapter is supported by important references as well as by an additional list of resources to support and supplement your knowledge. Proactive Intelligence: The Successful Executive's Guide to Intelligence teaches you how to generate proactive intelligence and use it to advance your business and your career- making it an essential resource for managers and executives, as well as everyone who wishes to integrate CI into their daily work routine.
For knowledge management to be successful, the corporate culture needs to be adapted to encourage the creation, sharing, and distribution of knowledge within the organization. Knowledge Organizations: What Every Manager Should Know provides insight into how organizations can best accomplish this goal. Liebowitz and Beckman provide the information companies need for evaluating and planning the steps and processes that will transform their existing organization infrastructure into a "knowledge-based" organization. This easy-to-read guide includes many vignettes, examples, and short cases of organizations involved in knowledge management.
"This book provides the latest ideas and research on advancing the understanding and implementation of business intelligence within organizations"--Provided by publisher.