Online Competitive Intelligence: Increase Your Profits Using Cyber-Intelligence

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Summary: How to analyze and monitor a competitor's strategies
Review: In Online Competitive Intelligence, Helen Burwell shows how to analyze and monitor a competitor's decision-making and strategies through the resources of the Internet. How to utilize the Internet to target new and emerging markets, anticipate industry changes and trends, price new products and bring them to market, even how to save money and time thereby improving corporate productivity. This compendium of hundreds of free (and often relatively unknown) Internet sites will enhance any corporate manager's ability to perform timely and reliable online research and ought to be required reading for those corporate managers, planners, and marketers relatively unfamiliar with the informational wealth and powerful research tool that lies within their computer's access to the Internet.

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Summary: Dated and oddly organized
Review: This book comes with several strong promotional promises, most of which are over-promised and under-delievered. The book is written in a way that becomes stale quickly - particularly in its use of web-sites and pointing out sites and content that are not dynamic and now several years old. I have no doubt that Ms. Burwell knows her stuff -- it is just that she hasn't provided a well-organized means for communicating it to the reader. This book might be better if it were updated regularly, but I do not see annual editions of it available, which would have helped.

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Summary: Many Short-Cuts and Tips for Better On-Line Intelligence
Review: This helpful guide was revised in May 2000, and should be a regular resource for those with questions about competitors. The book is intended to help those who don't keep up with the topic regularly learn about the information tools available, to add new sources of information for those who are active in this area, and to improve the use of familiar tools by employing them differently and better. The book contains over 1500 bookmark references. You can also access these on-line at the author's Web site.

To me, the best aspect of this book was the suggested structuring of many standard competitive intelligence searches and reports. Ms. Burwell starts with the question, shows you what a report should contain, and details how to get the information. A typical question would be: What is company X doing in the following area?

With the outlines in this book, virtually anyone can use this book to create helpful information. If you are a small company or don't have a competitive intelligence unit, people in your company can use this book to get you the information you need in a timely and cost-effective way.

Another strength of this book can be found in the warnings throughout about when to be cautious in accessing or using information. These come from Ms. Burwell's many years of experience and will save you mistakes. For example, free information often isn't as good or as fast as information you pay for. Also, CD ROMs often provide more data at a lower price than on-line paid services do.

Another strength was help in evaluating the information you find. As we all know, the Internet is full of incorrect and misleading information. This adds a lot of value for the neophyte.

I was pleased to see that there were sections to help you probe anonymously, and how to use foreign resources in other than English.

Since much of what goes on here can come close to the line legally, lawyers will be glad to know that there are many warnings of when to consult counsel before acting.

You will also find helpful suggestions for keeping the information up-to-date where you have tracking needs. The suggestions for managing bookmarks was particularly helpful to me.

Having followed the competitive intelligence profession since 1974, I was pleasantly surprised to see the many resources now available. There are far more listed here than the professionals we hire typically use, or our internal staff can locate. As a result, I plan to reorganize how we acquire this information for our management consutling clients.

Before deciding how much competitive intelligence you need, check this book out. It may increase the amount of activity that you want to do, as you develop a better sense of what is possible.

After you have finished reading and applying this book, I suggest you also do some counterintelligence and learn what can be gleaned about your company using the same techniques. Chances are that you need to tighten up in some areas.

Keep ahead of the competition offensively and defensively!