The competitor may have its own CI activities targeted at the organization. Or it might intentionally generate disinformation to mislead the organization's efforts. The competitor may also use common ploys to pump information from the organization's employees. The competitor, posing as a potential employer, inquires from the organization's employees about their duties and responsibilities. A competitor's trusted employee , in the guise of a potential job seeker, tries to learn about the organization in the course of the employment process.
Seduction Involves flattery of organization's employees to encourage disclosure of important facts.
In the nonsale sale technique, the competitor pursues the organization's nonemployee associates such as distributors and suppliers to elicit information about the organization's pricing structure, customer service, etc. The objective of the Competitive Intelligence Program is to gather relevant information that is valid and accurate. Incomplete or inaccurate information may jeopardize the organization's CI efforts. False Confirmation There might be instances of false confirmation in which one source of data appears to confirm the data obtained from another source. In reality, there is no confirmation because one source may have obtained its data from the second source, or both sources may have received their data from a third common source.