p.2 A competitive advantage is the distinct way the organization is positioned in the market for it to obtain
an advantage over competitors.
p.3-4 The strategic management framework is supposed to help decision makers understand the elements that
must "fit" together to make effective strategic decisions... Finding the means for achieving this fit or congruence
between an organization and it (business or competitive) environment is a critical task of the strategic and competitive analyst.
The analyst will always attempt to understand how to position the organization so that it can achieve the tightest fit. The
process for generating this form of understanding underlies the competitive intelligence "process": Competitive
intelligence should help the organization make more effective strategic decisions.
p.5 Strategic thinking:
- is a synthesis of intuition and creativity (Mintzberg, 1994).
- is a marriage of information and insight (that is, intelligence) that allows a clear understanding
of how to reorder elements to maximize results within an emerging and often discontinuous context (Ohmae, 1982).
- offers an integrated perspective on the organization.
- concentrates on interrelationships as opposed to individual components.
p.5 Making the right choice hinges upon the quality of the information available. Intelligence often spells
the difference between success and failure.
p.6 Intelligence may be defined as the value-added product resulting from the collection, evaluation,
analysis, integration, and interpretation of all available information that pertains to one or more aspects of an executive's
needs, and that is immediately or potentially significant to decision making... Intelligence is necessary to reduce
uncertainty and risk in decision making.
p.6 CI encompasses the potential effects (i.e., threats and opportunities) created by all external
elements of the business environment that impact on the current competitiveness and future competitive ability of an organization.
It is a systematic process or cycle... for collecting and analyzing information about competitors' activities, one's business
environment and business trends to further one's own organizational goals. In summary, CI is... [a] multistep process that
ultimately can make an organization a dominant player
p.6 The driving purpose of performing competitive analysis is to better understand one's industry
and competitors in order to make decisions and to develop a strategy that provides a competitive advantage that achieves
continuing performance results superior to one's competitors. The analysis outputs produced should be actionable,
meaning that they are future oriented, help decision makers to develop better competitive strategies, facilitate a better
understanding than that of competitors, and identify current and future competitors, their plans, and strategies.
