If you had to present a case to leadership about what Competitive Intelligence is or is not and ended with a set of universal truths, what would be in your list?  I wanted to do this because I keep finding myself explaning to new leader what to expect from Competitive Intelligence.  When I was in Special Ops we had a list.  They came from the experience of the Desert One Operation, the rescue of hostages from Iran under the Carter Administration.  Here they are:

SOF…

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We are having a discussion on what are the essential elements, or outputs of a typical customer Black Hat.  We agree to the staples: customer organization, key decision makers, funding, how they approach acquisitions, award history, etc.  It seems when we has a larger community they want to see more and that is where the discussion goes.  We get things like technical solutions, market influence, organizational cohesiveness.  It seems where you sit in the business organization drives…

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I am reading Seena Sharp's Competitive Intelligence Advantage and it is quickly becoming one of my favorites. I have read other books, but got little practical use out of them--they were much to academic. I am trying to compile a recommended bibliography for our new practitioners that want to learn more. What are your favorite books, web sites, blogs, podcasts--anything you use to keep up with competitive intelligence and anything you use to sharpen your skills?

After leading a major capture for 4 years I think I picked up a few pointers on the value of Competitive Intelligence and Competitive Analysis. Obviously, the links between developing win themes, ghosting strategies and a PTW approach are the major areas, but later when working a major proposal, I found that having good CI/CA on hand is extremely important. There is a NORAD/NORTHCOM saying "The time to exchange business cards is not at the start of a crisis". Well I would say the time to look… Continue