Information and Communications Technology for Competitive Intelligence

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. To gather and analyze this information, information and communication technology (ICT) is an invaluable tool. Examples are: the Internet, data warehouses or specific applications for competitive intelligence. However, the uncritical 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 Communications Technology for Competitive Intelligence addresses this need. It sets out to assess the role and possibilities of ICT in the intelligence activities from different perspectives.

Dirk Vriens is an assistant professor of knowledge and information management at the Nijmegen School of Management.