Competitive Intelligence / Competitive Strategy, by Arik Johnson
by Arik Johnson


Recent U.S. Government Intelligence Mistakes Have Lessons to Teach Intelligence Practitioners in Business: The sweeping overhaul underway at the Federal Bureau of Investigation demonstrates valuable lessons to be shared with intelligence practitioners in business - from a focus on analysis, to the proper use of human sources and even the role of management oversight. This essay compares and contrasts the realms of government intelligence with market and competitive intelligence in the context of the forces that came together in an intelligence failure that may have played a role in the September 11th terrorist attacks.


SCIP 2002 - Trip Report - Cincinnati, 3-6 April: Aurora Managing Director, Arik Johnson's, trip report from the 2002 Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals 17th Annual International Conference and Exhibit.
The Top 12 Priorities of Competitive Intelligence: CI has priorities that range a lot more broadly than just understanding competitor behavior and plans, although that's a key component - its influence and usefulness shows up in many firms in other areas more traditionally served by existing "silos" of functionality that sometimes take offense at CI playing in their sandbox. Now in "Competitive Intelligence, Competitive Strategy", find out all about what makes for a complete CI mission with a world-class level of sophistication and understanding of functional priorities.

-OR FROM OUR ARCHIVES-

Entrepreneurial Intelligence: Best Practices in Strategic Competitive Intelligence Development, What to do and, more importantly, what NOT to do! Plus, for a limited time, get access to our managing director's recent full-day workshop slides at the SCIP Annual Conference in Seattle.

Mating Habits of Corporate Fauna: The Role of Competitive Intelligence in Helping to Ensure Success in Mergers, Acquisitions, Alliances and Other Inter-Enterprise Relationships

The New "New Economy": With Growth Slowing as We Move into 2001, Effective Competitive Intelligence is Now More Important Than Ever - Translation - a Slowing Economy Means CI Takes Center Stage


Brand Equity versus Brand Differentiation: Recent Lessons in Political Competition: What's the Cause of Recent "Un-Presidented" U.S. Election Results… a Lack of Brand Differentiation? More Directly, it was a Lack of Brand Equity & the Influence of the Media

Ralph Nader for President: A Republican for Nader: Have Republicans Won the Ideology Wars and Long for a Worthy Rival; or, is it a Case of Spoiling Gore's Campaign as Perot did in '92 to Bush's Daddy? This Republican is Endorsing Nader as Good for American Business

Education @ the Crossroads: Will the Disintermediating Influence of Online Learning and Alternatives to Traditional Classroom Instruction Deflate the Value of Classroom Environments? Will this New Era of Rising Educational Costs Polarize Student-Customers in a New Economy of Unlimited Choice?

And Then There Was One: Richard Hatch, the End-Game Competitor?: Does the TV Show "Survivor" represent Survival of the Fittest? Rich's Competitive Strategy Brings Home the Big Prize

Race for the Whitehouse: Competitive Strategy in the Battle for National Leadership

Napster - Part II of II: Enemy of my Enemy is My Friend: Competitive Strategy - Competing with Free - to survive, Labels must embrace the Enemy

Napster - Part I of II: Napster Lives On -- Record Labels Face A Brave New World: Competitive Implications: Napster & The Changing Nature Of Intellectual Property


Microsoft Corporation or Federal Estate Taxes: Which is Worse for Consumer Choice and Encouraging Competition?

Intellectual Property: Benchmarking and Managing Competitive Advantage for Long-Term Market Impact May Depend Less on Legal Protections and More on Evolving Cultural Opinions About Morality

Application Service Providers: Nothing New But the Channel Strategy, And Threats of Forward-Integration Abound


The Core of Market Strategy: Turning Market and Competitor Knowledge into Actionable Intelligence

WHEW!: Worldwide Business Community Narrowly Escapes Y2K Computer Disaster

Investing With Intelligence: Using Competitive Analysis to Pick Winners and Steer Clear of Losers When Investing

Competitive Intelligence Software Applications: E-Business Focuses on Analysis and Integration for Actionable CI

Risky Business: Unifying the Management of Converging Knowledge Sources Makes Good Business Sense; yet, the Fact Remains that Firms' Compliance with New Information Sharing Policies or Legal and Regulatory Requirements While Minimizing the Risk of Leaking Proprietary or Secret Information can often Make Competitors Cheer

Competitive Intelligence Workflow: The Self-Service Continuum from Ad Hoc Research to Environmental Scanning

Better Read Than Dead: Internet News Clipping Services Help Keep Companies On Top Of Their Markets, here's the Aurora analysis of services.

Marketplace Hegemony Series: E-Commerce Separates Tomorrow's E-Businesses from Yesterday's Business-As-Usual

Ex-Post-Facto Series: What does the AOL-Netscape Merger mean for Microsoft?

Seven Steps for Effective Competitor Benchmarking

Marketplace Hegemony Series: Microsoft, General Electric and Core Competencies

Antitrust Series: Illegal tying is one of the most common antitrust claims

What It Takes To Be Number One -- By Vince Lombardi: A legendary competitor reveals his philosophy of winning

The Economic Espionage Act of 1996: If you've never actually read the EEA-96, then do so here.

From Around the Web

"Benchmarking Comes of Age": Benchmarking is becoming a quicker and more convenient process thanks to improved technology and the emergence of benchmarking networks. From Business Finance Magazine.


"All Along the Watchtower": Corporate info gathering pros reveal some of their favorite techniques. From CIO Magazine.


"Invoking the EEA-96": Taiwanese executives to stand trial for Economic Espionage. From CNNfn IndustryWatch.


"Internet Anxiety": You're Merrill Lynch when Schwab.com comes along. You're Barnes & Noble when Amazon.com hits big. You're Toys 'R' Us when eToys shows up. Oh, dear! What do you do? The choices are clear -- but painful. With online-only extras, including Q&As with frontline participants such as GE's Jack Welch and a special video interview with Schwab CIO Dawn Lepore. From Business Week.


"World War MP3": The new online music technology is dragging the recording industry into the digital age. From Rolling Stone Magazine.


"The E-Corporation": More than just Web-based, it's building a new industrial order. From Fortune.


"Norwest aims for keiretsu": Norwest Venture Partners lures early stage startups with the prospects of partnership deals with its top portfolio companies. From the Red Herring.


"GROSS IDEA:" Idealab's Bill Gross is resurrecting 'pay per placement' on his new search engine. From the Red Herring.


"Securing Employee Compliance": It's bad enough to lose a good employee. But it's even worse when that person reveals your competitive strategies to his or her new employer. What can you do? From Beyond Computing Magazine


"Intranet Portals": Ericsson builds a global portal for 250,000 current and former employees, business partners and all of their families to collect valuable Market Intelligence. From Internet World

"No Fear Co-Opetition": Strategic Directions for a new era of Competition. From Knowledge Management Magazine.


"Scenario Planning": Looking at possible futures and assigning probabilities. From CIO Magazine.


"Business is war", but you can fight back with a killer app -- a virtual war room. From InfoWorld Electric


"Shaping Markets When Customers Make the Rules": An Interview with John Hagel III and Marc Singer From Harvard Business School


"Is MP3 the End of the Music Business?": Or is it a new beginning? How the record industry is coping with technology that lets you hear your favorite bands for free. From Rolling Stone Magazine


"CHANGING CHANNELS": You thought reengineering was hard? Try switching to a direct-sales mode. From CFO Magazine


"Creating New Market Space": W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. From the Harvard Business Review, January-February 1999 Executive Summary


"Why Wal-Mart is Scared of Amazon.com": The nation's largest retailer, itself a relatively young company that succeeded by breaking all the rules, goes after an Internet upstart that aspires to be something of a "Wal-Mart of the Web." From The Industry Standard


"Practice Makes Perfect": Perfection is a concept rare in business, but here's a story about how to decrease your businesses' mistakes to statistical perfection -- 3.4 errors in every one million opportunities! From CIO


"Is AT&T's CEO the Net's new puppetmaster?" From the Red Herring


Knowledge Management as a Framework for Competitive Intelligence
(Introduction: Part 1 of 8)

Why is KM perhaps the most revolutionary change in the managing of the information assets of the firm and how does it affect CI? Find out here.


What is Competitive Intelligence?
How's it going to help my organization?

Many managers have yet to fully explore many of the main concepts, objectives and tools available for C/I. This article explains in detail.


MCI and WorldCom:
How BT Fell Short At C/I

The recent decision by MCI to accept the US$ 37 Billion bid from WorldCom, and shirk British Telecom speaks volumes about why C/I is so critical in the Strategic Planning process.