Small and medium-scale businesses should practice competitive intelligence if they are to survive and grow in a barrier-free regional market environment.
The recently-concluded seminar on “Competitive Intelligence and Your Business Conversation” conducted by the UP Institute for Small-Scale Industries underscored the importance of competitive intelligence for businesses of all sizes, in the face of the ASEAN integration expected to be in place this year.
Competitive intelligence or CI is defined as a systematic and ethical program for gathering and analyzing information about the competitive forces and general business trends to further one’s own company goals
SDI Competitive Intelligence Consulting services Romeo Mascardo, who was the main resource person, said such program is key to getting ahead of the competition.
He added that information can be as simple as “something that you discover when you attend a conference”. However, such information, including historical data, are good but only when they are processed, analyzed and transformed into intelligence to be used in strategic planning that they become valuable.
This is where knowledge management comes in. “It is a conscious strategy of getting the right knowledge to the right person at the right time and helping people share and put information into action in ways that strive to improve organizational performance,” he said.
He discussed techniques and best practices in gathering intelligence from competitors.
The course is another training program collaboration between UP ISSI and SERDEF.
Photo: from maia-intelligence.com