Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence: The Online and Offline Secrets of Top CI Researchers

Citation

Hooper, V. (2004), "Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence: The Online and Offline Secrets of Top CI Researchers", Online Information Review, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 84-85. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520410522547

This exciting volume is a very appropriate contribution to the competitive intelligence (CI) profession – appropriate content and appropriate timing. Although there are professional societies and professional publications for CI, the profession and discipline are still in their nascence and, in many cases, acknowledgement of the importance and value of CI from companies and academia remains a challenge. This volume should contribute significantly to meeting that challenge.

The introduction is very good. There are clear descriptions of exactly what CI entails, and a very good history of CI as a discipline and the courses offered at universities and colleges is provided. It would have been even more enlightening to include some reference to what is offered in Europe and other parts of the world. The differentiation between CI and research, which is often secondary, is well explained, and a clear distinction is made between data, information and intelligence. Just sufficient of a summary and consolidation of the content is provided in the introduction so that it presents a stimulating peek into the contents, and entices the reader to discover more.

The interviews make for fascinating reading. The selection of interviewees was very good, covering a wide variety of companies or clients for which they work, types of CI in which they are involved, and different modi operandi. It is interesting to note how some use templates and some are led by the demands of the brief, and how the time spent on the different components of CI differs.

The interviews were skilfully tailored to each respondent and were able to pick on especially significant aspects of their experience without interfering with the general template of the interviews. While most of the interviewees were asked a more or less similar set of questions, the variety of their work yielded dissimilar types of responses so that the reader did not become bored with more of the same, yet was still able to make mental comparisons where applicable. The need for a couple of paired interviewees could have been explained.

The last interview provided a different and thought‐provoking perspective. John Prescott, a founder member of both the profession and the academic discipline, emphasized the point that CI ability can be taught. This presented a good balance with many of the former interviews where the impression is created that to be a successful CI professional, a wide spectrum of knowledge and a healthy amount of creativity and ingenuity are required. Prescott’s interview can be seen as a call to arms with regard to fostering the growth of the profession.

The appendix of referenced sites and sources is excellent. The brief explanations of each are particularly helpful. However, some readers might find the odd referencing style for monographs slightly disconcerting.

Many practitioners will be drawn to the community of CI professionals via this book. In many ways it provides consolidation of what many researchers are doing without actually identifying themselves as CI professionals – either simply regarding themselves as researchers, market/‐ing researchers or analysts.

Many academics, too, will be stimulated by this “non‐academic” presentation of a profession, and of a discipline which draws so obviously on many of the more traditional academic offerings and which is so obviously much needed in strategic business practice.

Finally – a point to ponder. While the objective of this volume is for the reader to discover the secrets of CI from the top professionals, one is left knowing/wondering whether one has been given a fishing rod and told how to cast and reel in but not all the finer details of how to read the water, weather, etc.