Competitive Intelligence:

From being the “eyes and

the ears” to becoming “the
brain” of companies
by Christophe Bisson
and Avner Barnea

Volume 23 • Number 4 • Fall 2018 www.scip.org 15

Competitive Intelligence: From being the “eyes and the ears” to becoming “the brain” of companies
1. Competitive
Intelligence Today
It is commonly accepted that Competitive Intelligence (CI)
as a science and an art rose in the 80s (Prescott, 1999).
For instance, one of the first CI units was established
in Motorola in the mid-1980s. The first professionals
who practiced CI were librarians and marketers, but
gradually some CI specialists, CI units or departments
appeared. CI can be construed as a multidisciplinary field
encompassing strategy, management & organization,
computer science, and marketing.
Competitive Intelligence focused mainly on environmental
scanning of information about activities that happen
around firms and have an impact on their performance
(Aguilar 1967). Thereby, it can be defined as the process
involving the gathering, analyzing, and communicating
of environmental information to assist strategic decision-
making (Dishman and Calof 2007). As a product,
CI delivers actionable intelligence (Pellissier and
Nenzhelele, 2013).
Figure 1. The Intelligence Society
Source: Denieul F.
16
In army or defense, those in command of intelligence are
considered the “brain,” and thus intelligence is closely
involved in the decision-making process. However, in
companies it is more often the eyes and ears of decision
makers, but they are not (or very rarely) involved directly
in the strategic process. Hence, the main efforts are too
often on gathering information and less on analysis.
Indeed, CI is regularly assimilated as information/
knowledge on competitors and at the best market (e.g.
see Tsai et al., 2011). Furthermore, CI specialists are
rarely at the board of companies, often are sub part
of the marketing department (Bisson, 2013), or diluted
in different jobs in the company. In such conditions, CI
delivers the basic material for decisions, and CI fellows
appear to be disconnected from the strategic; however,
most frequently, decisions are based on silo views of
companies ‘environment and can lead to redundant
work among departments. In fast moving and highly
uncertain competitive environments, blind spots end
more and more frequently by a business failure (e.g.
Kodak, Nokia, Alcatel). Therein, a “business as usual”
mentality can no longer cope with hyper competition,
faster innovation cycle, and the huge increase of data/
information which will dramatically soar with the Internet
of Things.
Competitive Intelligence
Competitive Intelligence: From being the “eyes and the ears” to becoming “the brain” of companies
Furthermore, what one defines as intelligence should
be new knowledge allowing new understanding as
underlined by Liam Fahey (2009). Thus, when nothing is
new about markets and competition, it is about knowledge
and not intelligence (see Figure 1). Intelligence is what
can provide a competitive advantage, not only through
strong knowledge, but mainly due to new acumen and
new knowledge that enlightens decisions.
It has often been said that CI allows actions. But isn’t
it a science as well? Hence, science is a seamless
questioning cycle. The leitmotiv, “I doubt then I am” can
help companies to test the status-quo, detect blind spots,
and anticipate. To consider CI only through actions is
a tropism, and time has come to also consider it as a
science.
It has been redundantly said that CI must help
companies to anticipate since to react is a long process
to be implemented in big companies. It can take several
years to implement change in a big company. But the
capability of anticipation can allow also one to get a
competitive advantage, avoid a threat and that’s true
for any type of company and any sector (see Bisson
and Dou, 2017). Moreover, in such tough competition,
the first mover can be the winner and most of the time it
gets a big market share that extends toward monopoly
or oligopoly as a paradox of the market economy.
As underlined by Derek Sugalski during his talk at the
SCIP Europe 2016 conference, Competitive Intelligence
(CI) triggers less research online. If one performs
research with Google trend (trend.google.com), one
would find similar results. On the reverse, machine
learning searches, trends are quickly rising.
If Israel is often shown as an example for its intelligence
practices, surprisingly, Barnea (2016) in a longitudinal
study enhanced that CI is at the same level with years
and rarely at high level of companies. If the trend is
obviously not positive, we detect opportunities that
should make the CI future brighter.
2. A Necessary Change to Win
Companies and public organizations are facing, for the would position itself as the brain of the company!
first time, high levels of Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and
Ambiguous (VUCA) strategic environments. Therefore, That’s what we should aspire to if we do not want to see
to keep having strong decision system and avoid blind CI perish as Machines rise!
spots, organizations need to have a 360 degree vision
Volume 23 • Number 4 • Fall 2018
of what is going on to be open to information, knowledge
outside, and also inside.
Thereby, it would help to innovate, allocate by the best
way its resources and adapt its strategic direction to
changes. CI is the only transdisciplinary field that can
glue all the parts that are necessary for decisions in such
an external environment.
Furthermore, by understanding the competitive game,
the internal information and knowledge network vital for
decisions, CI professionals are the ones that can lead the
use of computational power, AI, and machine learning
for tactical and strategic purpose to anticipate and
get competitive advantages (see Bisson and Gurpinar,
2017).
Indeed, if the use of non-parametric machine learning
algorithm is gaining ground for face recognition, for
tactical and strategic purposes, the supervised ones can
still provide the most interesting results. Hence, we see
an opportunity for CI professionals to augment their
skills with AI to get stronger recognition and be part of
the board as a vital element for sustainability.
One of the major challenges for AI in intelligence, not
necessarily in national intelligence but in business, is to
develop the capability of using AI to help in analyzing
information and also anticipate further moves by
competitors. However, we have to remember that at the
end of this process, we need to use the human brain
to make sure that we are making sense of information
and knowledge. Moreover, Stephanie Hughes
emphasized during the SCIP Europe 2016 conference
that, at best, we can analyze 0.5% of Big Data. Thus,
a pure computational approach would lead to wrong
strategic decisions. There are already a few significant
progressions in Israel for instance that integrates AI
capabilities within intelligence analysis and predictions
to support decision making.
By creating an open organization, optimizing the flow
of information, knowledge from its external and internal
stakeholders, augmented by Machine Learning and AI
mainly for strategic purpose but also for tactical, CI
www.scip.org 17

In fast moving and highly uncertain competitive
environments, blind spots end more and more frequently
by a business failure (e.g. Kodak, Nokia, Alcatel). Therein,
a “business as usual” mentality can no longer cope with
hyper competition, faster innovation cycle, and the huge
increase of data/information which will dramatically soar
with the Internet of Things.
18 Competitive Intelligence
Competitive Intelligence: From being the “eyes and the ears” to becoming “the brain” of companies
References
1. Barnea, A. (2016). ‘Study on competitive intelligence
in Israel: 2016 update’. Journal of Intelligence Studies
in Business, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 5-16
2. Bisson, C. (2013). Guide de Gestion Stratégique de
l’information pour les PME. Les 2 encres, France, 278
p.
3. Bisson, C. and Dou, H. (2017). ‘Une Intelligence
Economique et Stratégique pour les PME, PMI et ETI
en France’. Vie & Sciences de l’Entreprise. No.204.
4. Bisson, C. and Gurpinar, F. (2017). ‘A Bayesian
approach to developing a strategic early warning
system for the French milk market’. Journal of
Intelligence Studies in Business, Vol.7, No.3, pp. 25-
34.
5. Dishman, P. L., Calof, J. L. (2007). ‘Competitive
intelligence: a multiphasic precedent to marketing
strategy’. European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 42,
No. 7/8, pp. 766-785.
6. Fahey, L. (2009). ‘The future direction of Competitive
Intelligence: Some reflections’. Competitive Intelligence
Magazine, Vol. 12. Number 1, January/ February
2009, pp 17-22.
7. Pellissier, R. and Nenzhelele, T. (2013). ‘Towards a
universal definition of competitive intelligence’. SA
Journal of Information Management, Vol. 15 No. 2,
pp. Art.#559, 7 pages.
8. Prescott, John E. (1999). ‘The evolution of Competitive
Intelligence: Designing a process for action’. Proposal
management, spring 1999, pp. 37-52.
9. Tsai, W., Su, K.H., Chen, M.J (2011). ‘Seeing through
the eyes of a rival: Competitor acumen Based on
rival-centric perceptions’. Academy of Management
Journal, Vol.54, No. 4, 761-778.
Volume 23 • Number 4 • Fall 2018
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Christophe Bisson, Ph.D is
Associate Researcher at DICEN
Paris and Adjunct Professor at
ESSEC Business School, christophe.
bisson@essec.edu. He created the
software Stratbrain (see www.
stratbrain.tech) that he uses for his
lectures, trainings and consultancy.
Avner Barnea, Ph.D. is a senior
competitive intelligence strategic
consultant and also teaches
strategic CI in various MBA
programs in academia, in Israel. He
is the head of a special program on
competitive intelligence, corporate
security, cyber security and crisis
management in the MBA program at Netanya Academic
College, in Netanya, Israel. Dr. Barnea is teaching
the course “Strategic Intelligence in the Competitive
Landscape” in several MBA programs, including the
Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffa, and the MA program
of the Department of Information Science, Bar Ilan
University. He is currently Chairman of the Israel CI
Forum (FIMAT); he is also member of SCIP (Strategic
and Competitive Intelligence Professionals) Board of
Directors and distinguished member – academia, of
SCIP. Dr. Barnea is a former senior officer with the
Israeli Intelligence Community and is a research fellow in
the National Security Studies Center, University of Haifa,
Israel. avnerpro@netvision.net.il
www.scip.org 19