As competition increases and customers become more discriminating, firms are increasingly turning to competitive intelligence (CI) to provide insight into competitors' strategies and customers' needs. Realizing the competitive advantage that can be gained from CI, countless multinational corporations such as Procter and Gamble, General Motors, and British Petroleum to name just a few have either created formal CI units or adopted structured processes for collecting and analyzing information on the external environment. Experts recommend that firms engage in CI activities not only as a protective tool to guard against perceived threats and changes, but also as a mechanism for discovering new opportunities and trends (Evans and Miao 2011; Global Intelligence Alliance 2005; Pirttimaki 2007).
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