CI programs have goals such as proactively detecting opportunities or threats, eliminating or reducing blind-spots, risks and/or surprises; and reducing reaction time to competitor and marketplace changes. The end product of any worthwhile CI activity is what practitioners term actionable intelligence, i.e. intelligence that management can act upon. It is more than analysing competitors: it is a process for gathering information, converting it into intelligence (about products, customers, competitors, and any aspect of the environment) and then using it in decision making. In this sense, big data brings big change to CI. The course includes in-class seminars that introduce the fundamentals of competitive intelligence, including systems and strategic thinking. It provides many tools and techniques. Students will apply these tools in groups when analysing a preselected case company. They are expected to present early stage versions of their reports and, in the final workshop, they will present the results of their CI analysis, which is then discussed in plenary.

Syllabus

Part 1: Foundations of competitive intelligence
– Systems thinking for management.
– CI process.
– Sources and collection techniques.
– CI professionals.

Part 2: Competitor and Market intelligence tools
– Competitive benchmarking (to assess competitive cost of operations, to analyze
the true capabilities of a rival, as well as its immediate future actions).
– Early warnings and blindspots.
– Business ecosystems (value network analysis).
– Advanced tools: scenario analysis, war gaming,.

Part 3: Technology intelligence tools
– Intellectual Property Rights and patenting activity.
– Patent analysis and Bibliometrics analysis.
– Technology foresight.