Chapter 6

Exploring External Sources for Valuable CI Information

In This Chapter

arrow Keeping tabs on competitors for free

arrow Paying experts to gather information for you

arrow Sorting through data with analytics

arrow Perusing publications and research papers

Although internal information is important for spotting issues you need to address, external information is essential for providing insight into those issues and for monitoring the ever-changing competitive landscape. Far too many companies are overly focused on what’s happening inside their organization and suffer for it with missed opportunities, costly mistakes, and overlooked threats. To maximize the impact of intelligence, CI needs to shift its gaze to external sources. In this chapter, I tell you where to look and how to find the most valuable information.

Although CI’s job is to ensure that information is gathered from external sources, everyone in the organization should be encouraged to explore the resources described in this chapter and pass along valuable discoveries to the CI team. For more about delegating research by department ...

Get Competitive Intelligence For Dummies now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.