Targeting intelligence gathering in a dynamic competitive environment

Current management approaches to resource-based strategy and core competence thinking require extensive intelligence gathering to ensure that correct assumptions are being made about the environment and competitors' capabilities. Without such intelligence any attempts to develop, maintain and in many cases even identify the key assets and competences are #awed. Often the very people who are best placed to carry out intelligence appraisals are those contributing strongly to mainline business activities of technology development and business winning. Because of this potential con#ict the intelligence process must be e$ciently targeted. Existing methods of intelligence concentrate on the process of intelligence gathering, frequently using military analogies. To the extent that a competitive system model can be created these existing approaches can be made more directed in their application and therefore more e$cient in their use of valuable in-company resources. Moreover, the very expression of a competitive system model can improve the appraisal process itself. The applicability of a general system modelling technique, used extensively in business process modelling and known as qualitative systems dynamics (QSD) is described and its applicability to the intelligence targeting problem is examined through the use of a case study. It is shown that the method is accessible and relevant to competitive intelligence problems. An example from practice, the competitive analysis of a major international defence company, is shown. It is seen that the level of analysis (data points, process understanding, systemic knowledge) relates closely to the elements of the system model and this concordance aids targeting. ( 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.