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.

Interdisciplinary business information experts contribute chapters on information and technology for competitive technology (CI)—the strategic collection and analysis of information about competitors, customers, and trends. Vriens (knowledge and information management, U, if Nijmegen) edits 12 chapters including linking competitive intelligence and intranets, using web link analysis to detect and analyze hidden web communities, a framework for business performance management, using geographical information systems for CI, and using groupware to build a scenario-based early warning system. Most of the contributions are from the U. of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR