The axioms of competitive intelligence
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This document outlines five axioms of competitive intelligence: 1) Over 90% of information about a company can be found through public channels like financial reports. 2) Public records can provide abstract information about private companies through sources like court cases. 3) Even small details of crucial information are observed by someone like partners, regulators or journalists. 4) Relying on a single information source is risky, so corroborating from multiple sources is better. 5) Organizations usually leave paper trails that can reveal their past, present and future plans through public documents like permits.
The axioms of competitive intelligence
- 1. THE AXIOMS OF COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE For additional information about Competitive Intelligence please visit www.Intelligence2act.com
- 2. www.Intelligence2act.com Competitive intelligence can give a company the advantage or at the very least level the playing field during tough negotiations. There are a few fundamental truths regarding the ethics and how you obtain this information but with business you have to consider what you have to gain or lose. Following are the axioms of competitive intelligence so that you can have a better idea of what the company or organization that you are dealing with is truly about. 2
- 3. www.Intelligence2act.com 1. THE MAJORITY OF THE INFORMATION THAT YOU REQUIRE IS AVAILABLE THROUGH PUBLIC CHANNELS. Taking the time to properly collect and analyze all of this data will be able to give you a great starting point for your search. Often you can get over 90% of all of the information about a company by looking in the right public channels. 3
- 4. www.Intelligence2act.com 2. PUBLIC RECORDS CAN BE RELATED TO THE COMPANY IN ABSTRACT WAYS. Looking for data on a private company may be a little more difficult than a public organization that has to report all of its financial data every quarter. By looking through all of the public data such as court cases and building records, often the financials had to be shown for one thing or another and have thus become part of information that you can easily retrieve. 4
- 5. www.Intelligence2act.com 3. NO MATTER THE SIZE OF THE DETAIL, SOMEONE IS WATCHING. Gathering that one crucial piece of information that would tie the picture together could be hidden from the public records but there will always be something that has this information that you can talk to. Whether it is old business partners, local regulators, or editors of a newspaper, someone is looking at the information that you are trying to gather. Getting to this critical piece of competitive intelligence then requires thinking outside the box and talking to everyone related. 5
- 6. www.Intelligence2act.com 4. RELYING ON A SINGLE SOURCE OF INFORMATION IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA. When you rely on one source of information you are betting that it is absolutely correct, but if it isn’t then your information is going to be inaccurate. It is far more beneficial in competitive intelligence gathering to corroborated information from two or more sources. The information from a single source is not completely invaluable and can help to give you direction but you have to be careful not to frame it as fact. 6
- 7. www.Intelligence2act.com 5. ORGANIZATIONS WILL ALMOST ALWAYS LEAVE A PAPER TRAIL. You can use the information gathering to not only piece together what companies have done in the past, but to see their future plans. When they are planning to build a new structure or involve a new chemical in a manufacturing process all of the public documents have to be filed for permits and supporting safety documents. Knowing this, if you keep a close watch on all of the recent filings you can have good competitive intelligence on the organization’s past, present, and future. 7
- 8. For additional information about Competitive Intelligence please visit www.Intelligence2act.com