Performance Assessment in Competitive Intelligence: An Exploration, Essay

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Performance Assessment in Competitive Intelligence: An exploration, synthesis and research agenda, written by David Blenkhorn from Wilfred Laurier University and Craig Fleisher from Windsor University. The purpose of the article is to "answer the vital question -- What are the critical factors to assess competitive intelligence (CI) performance?" The research question refers to the role that competitive intelligence plays in a company's profitability. The question is interesting in that external environmental scanning and competitor research make important contributions to strategic decision-making, but they can be costly and time-consuming. Understanding the role that CI plays in the earning profit is important in determining the point at which CI achieves diminishing returns on investment.

The authors used workshops and discussion sessions at CI conference to obtain survey results from 103 respondents. The selection process was expedient rather than rigorous, and the respondents were given a large number of questions. Qualitative analysis was performed, and the analysis was limited by the poor quality of most responses. The authors attempted to determine why companies measuring CI ROI, how, what barriers they faced and what alternative measures might be used. The authors found that measures allowed companies to quantify the value of their CI initiatives, to request more resources and to move CI towards being a profit centre. Companies are constrained in their ability to measure the outputs of CI activities, so while they appreciate the value of measuring CI ROI, the task is often prohibitively difficult.

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The authors have some suggestions for measuring CI ROI, but none of those suggestions appears to address the difficulty in measuring outputs.

The article is limited because the authors were not able to gain quality responses. They relied more on summarizing existing research or their own thoughts, rather than on analysis of the survey results. The strength of this article is that it highlights some major obstacles to the study of the value of CI to organizations. Overall, the article has limited value. The material would be useful in a textbook chapter about CI, but as an academic article it represents introductory coverage of the material rather than providing new insights into the topic.

The second article is Rulers for Business Intelligence and Competitive Intelligence: An Overview and Evaluation of Measurement Approaches by Sascha Buchda from Mid-Sweden University. The article is primarily an overview of the subject. The problem that the author attempts to solve is to evaluate the current suggestions for evaluating business intelligence and competitive intelligence. The author finds that most of the approaches for measuring the effectiveness of BI and CI are flawed in some way. In the conclusion, the author admits that the entire line of research may be pointless, as it is not commonly used in business. This is….....

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