As businesses learn more about competitive intelligence (CI) and how to use it, the ferocity of competition rises to a new level. Naturally, people will seek ways to protect themselves and their organizations against CI, but how? McGonagle and Vella, specialists in CI and what can be called CI countermeasures, have studied the problem from its beginning, and now offer corporate executives and executives in public and nonprofit organizations a portfolio of strategies and tactics. Each one is designed to meet two mutually important criteria: self-protection against the competitive...

Competitive intelligence uses public sources to obtain valuable information on competition and competitors. By using competitive intelligence aggressively and intelligently, corporations can obtain information on potential acquisition targets, markets, key personnel, the probable emergence of new products, or the financial strength or contracts of a competing firm. An absolutely indispensable playbook for anyone who has to compete during the information explosion.

"Martin Sikora, Editor, Mergers and Acquisitions"

Competitive intelligence uses public sources to obtain valuable...

Two of the most prolific and challenging authorities on the topic of competitive intelligence (CI) reflect on and respond to the changes in the field over the last decade. The authors point out that CI users have to change what they are doing, show why they are doing it, and provide ways of doing it. Their book reviews the problems in the development of CI since the 1980s, discusses the impact of the Internet and the rise in use of other secondary sources, and draws from and provides access to the growing body of CI information, knowledge, and literature.

Combining a scholarly approach...