Improving Strategic Planning and Implementation in Universities through Competitive Intelligence Tools: A Means to Gaining Relevance

Institutions of higher education can use competitive intelligence (CI) techniques to become more relevant to their communities. In Stepping Forward as Stewards of Place the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) provides a model for public engagement that emphasizes internal strategic planning, implementation, and assessment processes that involve regional communities and are aligned with state and policy environments. Universities can more fully utilize competitive intelligence to improve information collection and strategic planning, which can ultimately yield better decision making by university administrators. This article provides an overview of the steps involved in the competitive intelligence model and demonstrates how state universities can integrate this model with the existing Stewards of Place model to enhance their efforts and gain strategic advantage in public engagement.