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Summary: framing and answering a variety of CI questions
Review: Controversies in Competitive Intelligence is as different from User-Driven Competitive Intelligence as one can imagine. In this book, Craig and David have asked other writers to join them in framing and then answering, a bewildering variety of questions. And, to their collective and individual credit, every chapter comes to grip with the important question it is charged with dissecting. Of more than passing interest to those seeking to know if CI is truly global yet (a question not asked in this book), 21 of the 22 contributors are working or teaching in Canada, and the other one is in Australia. Who would like this book? It is not a matter of like, but a matter of need. Frankly, I think that anyone seriously involved in or even interested in,CI, whether as an academic, an internal manager, an outside consultant, or as an official involved with SCIP, should read this. Why? Because this book affirmatively raises hard questions, and then provides an unflinching look at each. Each chapter takes the reader through an understanding of the particular issue, sets out an approach to analyzing it, and then comes to its own conclusion on what is the right answer. That does not mean you will agree with what all of the authors have said. In fact, I cannot imagine that you would do so. If you read every chapter, you must inevitably come to those with which you disagree, but which you must honestly acknowledge that the authors do a fine job of setting out an answer. I found that I was muttering, in more than one place, "Well yes, but..." That means that the author's approach is causing me to think about the issue. And it should cause you to think as well. And for that I give it high marks. Excerpt from review written by John J. McGonagle, Book editor for Competitive Intelligence Magazine, published in the September/October 2003 issue by SCIP www.scip.org
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Summary: Unafraid to tackle the tough matters head on
Review: I've now read about a dozen CI-oriented books in the last twelve months and Controversies in Competitive Intelligence stands out from the rest of them for tackling head-on some of the more troubling matters long affecting the field. Not too dissimilar in format from the last book I read by these authors (see my review of "Managing Frontiers in Competitive Intelligence"), it consists of two dozen chapters, mostly by different authors who work in the CI field, and addresses the questions that many of us, including me, have been dealing with for years. Several chapters thoroughly piqued my interest, especially the ones that dealt with avoiding over-reliance on the internet for CI work (Chapters 7, 8, and 10) - something I see far too many of my corporate clients succumbing to, the growing debate over the field itself - best demonstrated by Fleisher's chapter 5 on what to call the field and chapter 3 whether those doing it are professionals, and the chapters that deal with CI's relationship to other organizational processes such as marketing (Chapter 22 by Blenkhorn), knowledge management (Chapter 23 by Knip), MIS (Chapter 13 by Nikkel), and CRM (see the very interesting Chapter 12 by Davis). Although I viewed these as the most valuable, there were no chapters in the book that I didn't find at least somewhat interesting and thought-provoking. The book won't provide all the answers we need to answer the questions it poses. Many of the chapters in the book could likely be treated in book length manuscripts themselves - and some of them deserve that treatment sooner rather than later. Having said that, this book is a very worthy and unique addition to the working bookshelf of any serious CI consultant or practitioner, is among the most insightful and valuable recently released in this field, and is easily worth the time to thoroughly read through its meaty 350 pages.
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