Competitive Intelligence for Dummies

[Richard]

I just finished reading  Jim Underwood's Book and stand by my analysis--breaking the cardinal CI rule of citing all your sources.  He actually devotes a lot of time to validation and being skeptical, which I find ironic as he cites no one- in the entire book!  He does use CI concepts and changes them around so he can present them as industry practices, but in effect he is plagiarizing others works.  For instance he uses 10 forces to describe market forces, when in fact he mixes STEEP analysis with Porters 5 forces, not exactly the same idea.  He uses a four step CI cycle that is way too simplistic for use.  He tried to pull in John Boyd's OODA loop and butchers the meaning of what John Body was trying to do.  He has a paragraph that says you should use Trade Shows and Conventions as rewards and recognition for your CI staff--true, page 61.  He actually implies that things get boring so send your staff out to change things up.  He adds a chapter at the end called "Ten signs your organization is in Trouble" that has nothing to do with CI but is as if he needed to add one more chapter to sell this.  Technically, nothing is really wrong with what he says, it is just useless. The practical examples are obviously taken from his law practice and widely stretched to try to make a point.  I am not exactly sure what his target audience is for this material, it can't be for anyone seriously thinking of entering the field, and senior management would see through this facade in the first 20 pages.    It was a mistake for Wiely to publish this book.