CI A Fortune 500 company survey showed 55 percent make use of competitive information in composing business strategy. Each firm is a leader in its industry and each firm knows its enemies. Companies and industries prosper through improvements in competitiveness, leveraging core competencies, and competitive intelligence is at the core of the objective of improving competitive advantage. Economies of scale, the foundation on which big companies have based their dominance in the Industrial Era, is no longer an advantage. Whatever strategic framework the firm chooses to embrace for the management of its business, no one element remains more fundamental to competitive strategy than competitive intelligence.
Competitive intelligence is more concerned with doing the right thing, than doing the thing right.
The goal of a competitor analysis is to develop a profile of the nature of strategy changes each competitor might make, each competitor's possible response to the range of likely strategic moves other firms could make, and each competitor's likely reaction to industry changes and environmental shifts that might take place. A firm which does not rigorously monitor and analyze key competitors is poorly-equipped to compose and deploy effective competitive strategy and this approach leaves the firm and its markets vulnerable to attack. The basis for CI revolves around decisions made by managers about the positioning of a business to maximize the value of the capabilities that distinguish it from its competitors. Failure to collect, analyze and act upon competitive information in an organized fashion can lead to the failure of the firm itself. Tactical intelligence is generally operational and on a smaller-scale, not so centered on being predictive.