Competitive Intelligence, Analysis and Strategy Creating Organisational Agility

The Holy Grail for most organisations is the successful attainment, and retention, of inimitable competitive advantage. This book addresses the question of how to leverage the unique intangible assets of an organisation: its explicit, implicit, acquired and derived knowledge. The refreshingly innovative concept of Intelligence-Based Competitive Advantage© is one which will eclipse the cost-driven and resource-reduction attitudes most prevalent in the first decade of this century. Tomorrow?s organisation will need to derive IBCA© through the expert execution of bespoke competitive intelligence practice, unique analytical processes, pioneering competitive strategy formulation, and timely execution of all three, if they are to succeed. This volume consists of insights from Competitive Intelligence practices at both country and organisational level, Competitive Analysis processes within the firm and within challenging sector and economic environments and Competitive Strategy formulation in profit, non-profit, real and virtual world contexts. It is essential reading for anybody wishing to gain a formal understanding of the practical and intellectual challenges which will face organisations in the future as they strive to achieve strategic foresight and Intelligence-Based Competitive Advantage.

This book was originally published as two special issues of the Journal of Strategic Marketing.

1. Converting input to insight: organising for Intelligence-Based Competitive Advantage Sheila Wright Part I: Competitive Intelligence 2. Competitive Intelligence programmes for SMEs in France: evidence of changing attitudes Jamie R. Smith, Sheila Wright and David Pickton 3. Complaints are a firm’s best friend Sophie Larivet and François Brouard 4. Applying a behavioural and operational diagnostic typology of competitive intelligence practice: empirical evidence from the SME sector in Turkey Sheila Wright, Christophe Bisson and Alistair P.Duffy 5. SMEs’ attitude towards SI programmes: evidence from Belgium Sophie Larivet and François Brouard Part II: Competitive Analysis 6. Leadership teams rediscover market analysis in seeking competitive advantage and growth during economic uncertainty Lyndon Simkin and Sally Dibb 7. The power of intuitive thinking: a devalued heuristic of strategic marketing Anthony Patterson, Lee Quinn and Steve Baron 8. Competitive Intelligence analysis failure: diagnosing individual level causes and implementing organisational level remedies Craig S. Fleisher and Sheila Wright 9. Is loyalty driving growth for the brand in front? A two-purchase analysis of car category dynamics in Thailand Dag Bennett and Charles Graham 10. Modeling customer churn in a non-contractual setting: the case of telecommunications service providers Ali Tamaddoni Jahromi, Mohammad Mehdi Sepehri, Babak Teimourpour and Sarvenaz Choobdar Part III: Competitive Strategy 11. Protecting the Olympic brand: winners and losers Trevor Hartland and Nicola Williams-Burnett 12. Moving closer to the customers: effects of vertical integration in the Swedish commercial printing industry Thomas Mejtoft 13. Market orientation in non-profit organizations: innovativeness, resource scarcity, and performance Pratik Modi 14. Bridging virtual and real worlds: enhancing outlying clustered value creations Daniel D. Bretonès, Bernard Quinio and Gilbert Réveillon

Sheila Wright is Reader in Competitive Intelligence and Marketing Strategy at De Montfort University, UK. She is widely regarded as a thought leader in the Competitive Intelligence and Insight Management field. Previous contributions to the field include numerous Journal articles and conference papers as well as invited addresses to industry bodies and practitioners.