Competitive Intelligence Advantage: How to Minimize Risk, Avoid Surprises, and Grow Your Business in a Changing World

Seena Sharp truly is a thought leader on Competitive Intelligence (CI) and definitely one of the best authors of this moment on the profession. She proves this with her book, Competitive Intelligence Advantage, in which she continuously stresses the importance of actionable knowledge regarding a company's competitive landscape. She emphasizes the scope of CI and clearly explains the difference between CI and for instance market research, marketing intelligence and other related professions. By doing this she contributes to branding CI with great authority. In fact, one might even say Sharp is too keen on underlining the true nature of the profession by constantly emphasizing what Competitive Intelligence is - and is not. It is almost as if she is convinced the reader is in total disagreement. Be that as it may, the bottom line is that in the end she makes sure you agree with her. Sharp teaches us quite some useful lessons in the course of the book. For one, she clearly demonstrates that for a proper CI system the whole competitive landscape should be watched. Not just customers (but she does mention this factor to be the first priority), especially not just competitors. All external factors that influence a company, directly or indirectly, should be considered. Other lessons include the emphasis on the present and (near) future rather than the (distant) past and the fact that if no action is taken as a result of the gathered competitive intelligence, you might as well not bother at all. Sharp offers many pearls of wisdom regarding the value of CI, if and when conducted properly. At the halfway mark of her book, Sharp shifts the scope from `why' to `how'. It is almost like an entirely different book from this stage on, the tone changing from a scientific lecture on the profession - thoroughly substantiated with a large number of cases (clearly displaying Sharp's wealth of experience) - to an extremely practical how-to guide to CI (in less than a day). The wide variety of practical (but slightly incoherent) tips and tricks will certainly be of help should you be in need of it in that particular area. But it almost seems as if Sharp wants to share everything she found out about the practical side of CI, without forging it into a process structure (or any other type of structure for that matter). The chapters move from a practical questionnaire for the sake of inspiration (questions a company could ask as a starting point for CI) to a chapter about what information sources can be found and where, to yet another chapter about ethics. All very useful, no doubt about that, but in a next issue I think it would be good to structure them by means of for instance the intelligence cycle. And then, amidst the tips and tricks, Sharp suddenly shifts back to a chapter about myths (reasons why CI is not important, profitable, worth the effort, etc.), where she once again creates an opportunity to flee in explaining the `why' part, because that seems to be her comfort zone. Conclusion As a relatively seasoned CI professional, I found Seena Sharp's book, Competitive Intelligence Advantage, to be great reading material. Even if you do not (always) agree with her, it is great to match your thoughts with the broad experience and knowledge Sharp displays in her book. This makes Sharp and her book excellent sparring partners for anyone interested in CI. The first half of the book is not so much a `how to' for CI. Instead, Sharp emphasizes the value of CI, focusing on the `why'. The second half on the other hand is a rich collection of practical, more practical and extremely practical tips for anyone practitioning CI. For me personally, the first half of the book benefited me most. Sharp helped sharpen the boundaries of my personal definition of CI. The way Sharp describes the differences between CI and related fields such as market research helped me `sell' the value of CI. But more importantly, her book has been a real eye opener on several occasions. For example when she provokingly states - bluntly against the opinion of many - that competitors are the least important external factor, she triggered me to (re)think this over, and convinced me that in fact she is right about this. For opportunities come from change, not from competitors.

Seena Sharp provides incredible wisdom around the practice of competitive intelligence and draws upon her wisdom from over 30 years experience. Seena defines competitive intelligence (CI), an unfortunate word combination which is why I believe it's made such poor inroads as a commonly practiced and understood discipline. There are relatively few CI degree programs globally and many schools, including leading MBA programs don't include much CI instruction in their curriculum. Executives like most people misunderstand CI and often focus on monitoring competitors, a subset of competitive intelligence which should include a robust external dive into all the factors which can affect your company's success -- starting with your customers. Too many executives claim to know what customers want better than the customer, and don't listen or query. While customers can't always articulate their needs using your company's products, it's up to you to figure out and develop products or services that will solve customer's problems in these changing times. In this vein, I loved Amazon's Jeff Bezos' attitude, "Figure out what they (customers) want and figure out a way to do it." Let's face it you want to sell more to your customers and grow your customer base. If you can learn enough to think like your customer, and recognize market changes and develop opportunities to meet or exceed your customer's needs, you will maintain a competitive advantage. But if you just look into the rear view mirror at your competitors and ignore looking forward and improving your customer's experience with your products and services, you will lose market share. Seena correctly defines competitive intelligence to include analysis of customers/prospects, buyers, suppliers, distributors/channel, technology, culture, regulation, demographics, the economy, substitutes, other industries and competitors. The book is chock full of examples and case studies on the benefits of using CI, including details supporting each of the components above. Another point Sharp emphasizes is the need to re-examine our assumptions in these changing times. To make this point she quotes Will Rogers, "it ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Likewise, when examining competitors, consider "what they know that you don't" to uncover new markets, applications and customer niches. Remember that your competitor's focus may be different from yours. Their priorities and strategy may be different from yours and they also make mistakes, so be careful what practices you adopt from them. Seena also gives tippers on starting a CI initiative in your company. One of my favorite practices she recommends is: re-evaluate what you "know" every year: question conventional wisdom and the culture behind "this is the way we have always done it." Another is to use customer complaints as an opportunity. In the realm of CI, Sharp focuses on gathering "need to know" rather than "nice to know." In the later chapters of the book, Seena focuses on how to collect CI, ranging from open sources all the way to identifying and querying people sources for collection. I believe that the quality of your answers is directly related to the quality of your questions and CI people need to be persistent in questioning to get at what decision-makers really need. Sharp provides lists of questions for readers starting with good questions to ask about competitors, but also relevant questions to ask by categories like "Tracking Change" and my favorite list on page 163 "Questions a Company Should be Asking Regularly." This list is provocative and gets the reader to reach out for people, relevant information from many sources and question anything that's new or looks odd. Answer the questions on that list, and you will eliminate nasty surprises! CI only produces good news--even when the news is bad and avoids the cost of making ill informed decisions and nasty surprises. In the new world economy can you afford not to conduct CI before making pivotal decisions? What is the cost of NOT having the necessary intelligence for your important decisions? How much does it cost to make a blunder in the marketplace? Read Seena Sharp's book and follow her advice and you will improve your company's competitive advantage!

This book is rare among competitive intelligence books. It not only provides practical approaches to competitive intelligence and the resulting analysis, but the why? So often I run into CI professionals that don't see the bigger picture. Without having that strategic compass to guide the CI efforts your just collecting data. Seena spends some time up front defining what CI is and what it is not--pay attention because she narrows down the definition and eliminates activities that are not CI. This is important because if you can't get that right you lose the leverage that CI provides. Scattered with real world examples to drive home important points, this book quickly became one of my favorites. I have it on my Kindle so I can refer back to parts, and have it on hand for discussions.

Excellent condition

Seena est une adepte passionnée et convaincue de l'intelligence économique. Son livre est trés interressant et comprend des exemples très parlant.

This book provides a very good overview into the key elements of competitive intelligence, when to employ it, and how to use the intelligence gathered. It also provides numerous real-life examples to support and illuminate the author's key points. While it does not cover key analytical CI tools, Chapter 9 usefully evaluates different information sources. I would recommend reading this book in conjunction with the classic Creating Market Insight: How Firms Create Value from Market Understanding, Smith & Raspin (2008) for the complementary subject of obtaining key insights from competitive and market research.

This book is not full of detailed tactics but really does an amazing job of giving an overview of competitive intelligence/market intelligence for beginners. Seena is a wonderful writer and peppers the material with insights that show her decades of experience. I've worked in the field for many years so I didn't learn a lot that was new but it gave me some good ideas on how to frame what I do for people who aren't familiar with Market Intelligence. Thank you, Seena!

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