Managing Frontiers in Competitive Intelligence

Rating:
Summary: Great balance
Review: I am an Australian CI professional with over a decade's experience in the field working with a variety of resource-based companies as a CI and Marketing freelancer. I found out about this book from a Sydney-based colleague who knows one of the editors who has spent some time working with companies down under. I was looking for a book that had both academic rigour and legitimacy along with some pragmatic advice about conducting CI in both SMEs (similar to ones I work in) and larger companies. This book struck a nice balance.

I particularly found several chapters of high value. The first chapter by Craig S. Fleisher gave a broad and insightful overview of the field and explained why it really hadn't "caught on" with corporate chieftains or those in training (MBAs)in North America. The 6th chapter by Richard McClurg was also among the best I've ever read describing the "push and pull" aspects of CI and the Net. Fleisher's chapter on analysis is also among the most valuable I've found on this difficult topic. I hope that this line of thought would be further extended in future efforts as it could warrant a book-length treatment by itself.

But my favourite chapter was likely the 10th by Fleisher and Blenkhorn on CI assessment. Everyone knows this is the CI "holy grail" and that the field will not progress until it solves the eternal issues of trying to find methods for assessing it better. The authors provided a multi-method approach that carves valuable ground into achieving the breakthrough the field needs. I have already applied several of their methods in my work and agree that there is much merit in the tools they suggest. I wish they had more room in the book to go into even greater depth but I recognize that their treatment likely had more to do with the space limitations that edited volumes like this one entail.

The entire 3rd section on applying CI to business functions and processes was enlightening to me as I've often been challenged within my employing companies to connect CI to others in the business. Knip's chapter on CI and the management accountant, and Rongdahl's on the BI-CI interface are particularly insightful. I must admit that the chapter (14) by Noori and others on NPD and CI appeared even more academic than I'd prefer and I wish they could have better stipulated what this interface might mean to practicing managers.

All in all, I really liked this book as it provided a wide variety of new and fresh thinking around the edges of the CI field in which many practitioners find themselves working. I have been sharing some of the chapters with my work colleagues and have found them valuable entres to further discussions about how CI can be of help to them.

I recommend this book to practitioners who are looking for a meatier than average treatment of CI. The book does appear to assume some knowledge of the field or at least a Uni-based understanding of business or competitive analysis practices and would likely be of best help to the mid-level CI manager or manager assigned CI as part of their broader responsibilities. Newcomers to the field might want to read a basic "how to" treatment (examples coming to mind would be the Kahaner or Fuld books) before tackling and benefitting as much from this one.

Rating:
Summary: Advanced material
Review: I bought this book pretty shortly after first discovering competiitve intelligence (CI). Fortunately, it wasn't among the first book I had read. Actually, West's and Linville's texts have that honor. This book is definitely higher level material than the other two I mentioned and actually was more beneficial to me because I had read over the more entry-level books first. This book is probably a little less how to than some other CI books, but makes up for it by being a "thinking man's" book. You can tell that all the chapter writers know their stuff and have spent much time considering their topics. It shows through in the more academic approach they take. Surprisingly, despite this academic approach, nearly all the chapters are relevant and useful. I don't find many books that find this balance and this one manages to do it very well. This book is a good one for more experienced practitioners. I wouldn't recommend it to those who have less than a couple years of CI experience.

Rating:
Summary: I wish I'd learned this stuff in my MBA program!
Review: This book was a good one for me. I recently completed my MBA at one of Florida's top schools (which shall remain nameless) where I took several courses in business strategy. For some unknown reason, I never heard of competitive intelligence during any of my studies. I picked up this book as a way to learn about a range of strategy applications. It was defintiely enlightening to me. What kills me is that this stuff isn't taught in more grad business programs, but I sort of understand why now after having read through the book. My favorite chapters were those in part 4, particularly on how you can use CI in biotech and service industries, and how it can work for small businesses.

I also liked the last few chapters dealing with ethics (another topic mysteriously absent from my MBA)and the future of CI which was written by the two authors. I honestly think this book would have made the basis for a terrific MBA level course in applied strategy and I have written my institution's professors to suggest that they do just that!

Although I'm now employed in the CI field with a large insurance company down here, I would have felt much better had I read this book a year or two ago before I had completed my graduate studies and pursued careers in this exciting and challenging field. I hope there will be more broad ranging CI books like this one in the future and maybe, just maybe, we'll see some discussed in our MBA programs! Hats off to the editors and keep up the solid work!