Competitive intelligence in the knowledge economy: what is in it for South African manufacturing enterprises?

In an unstable environment, enterprises are gradually realizing that there should be major changes in how they deploy their strategic resources to compete in the knowledge economy. In this paper, the role of competitive intelligence in South African manufacturing enterprises is examined. The difference between the industrial and the knowledge economy and the competitive intelligence function in an enterprise is explained. The manufacturing industry is the biggest industry in South Africa and in a previous study by the researcher it was founded that only 44% of manufacturing enterprises in South Africa collected information on competitors. It was therefore decided to do a follow-up study and to determine the importance of competitive intelligence in the strategic management process of these enterprises, to find out where and how the enterprises obtain information on competitors and the use of competitive intelligence systems in these enterprises. r 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.