The Internet Age of Competitive Intelligence

A reflection on the topic of competitive intelligence (CI), this text seeks to respond to changes in the field during the 1990s. 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. They review the problems in the development of CI since the 1980s, discuss the impact of the Internet and the rise in use of other secondary sources, and draw from and provide access to the growing body of CI information, knowledge and literature. Combining a scholarly approach with hands-on advice, the study covers the radical changes in on-line database searching and ways in which the Internet has fundamentally modified how we think of accessing data. It explores and reports the major body of work from the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals.