Court records, state filings and government hearings aren't published, but they are public and contain important information about a competitor's finances and future plans. These state-required filings of assets and loan collateral can often tell you how much of a capital investment a competitor is making, the kind of equipment purchased and what company manufactured it. A quick call to the manufacturer can tell you what the equipment is used for, and, therefore, what kind of new activity a competitor is financing. Other sources of CI include internal and external sources. Internal sources include those pieces of information you and your employees need to do your jobs, such as technical papers, competitor sales literature, press clippings, annual reports, and the like.
Information also comes from secondary and primary sources.
Secondary sources represent information that has been filtered through somebody other than the originator of the data, such as news stories and stock analyst reports. Primary sources are the originators of the information, and often you must interview the source to get the desired data. CI professionals also differentiate between hard and soft information. Hard information is quantitative, like facts, statistics, raw data, financial information and hard news stories. Soft information is qualitative, and includes rumors, opinions, anecdotes, customer feedback and the like.