Competitive Intelligence

The Competitive Intelligence Market Cycle

Competitive Intelligence | Strategy

As Fletcher/CSI continues to celebrate its 30th year in operation, we pause to reflect on how the past thirty years have changed the practice of CI. This month my thoughts are about the larger CI cycles and where in the cycle we are…

October 29, 2018 Read more

What Does it Take to be a CI Professional?

Competitive Intelligence

Looking back over our thirty-year history, I am reminded of a key question that crops up whenever I talk to companies starting a CI unit. The question most frequently asked is about how to staff the unit and more specifically, what…

August 28, 2018 Read more

Is Your CI Unit Effective? Insights from the 5th Annual Effective CI Survey

Competitive Intelligence | Strategy

Our 30-year anniversary coincided with the administration and analysis of our 5th Annual Effective CI Survey. We originally launched the survey five years ago to identify CI best practices and understand how they directly link to more…

June 28, 2018 Read more

Lessons from Cybersecurity for the CI professional

Competitive Intelligence | Technology

As we continue our 30-year celebration, I am reminded of how much cross-pollination there is between Competitive Intelligence skill sets and other analytical tools. Recently, that cross-pollination was highlighted in an application…

May 31, 2018 Read more

Past and Present: The Fortune 500 in 1988 vs. 2018

Competitive Intelligence | Strategy

As Fletcher/CSI reflects on the past 30 years of advising the world's leading companies, it is interesting to analyze how the Fortune 500 list has changed since our founding in 1988. Today, we focus on providing competitive…

March 14, 2018 Read more

Top 10 Signs You Need a Third Party Competitive Intelligence Partner

Competitive Intelligence

Over the past thirty years that Fletcher/CSI has been in operation, we have formed some opinions about when a company should outsource some parts of its CI operation. One of our guiding principles is that the best use of the CI team…

February 13, 2018 Read more

Competitive Intelligence: Thirty Years Retrospective

Competitive Intelligence

Fletcher/CSI entered the world of Competitive Intelligence in 1988, a total of thirty years ago. Thirty years is a milestone for any business, and we want to start the year by sharing some perspective on how CI has evolved since 1988.…

January 11, 2018 Read more

A Lesson from Macmillan: Why We Need to Strategize Three Steps Ahead of the Game

Competitive Intelligence | Strategy

Events, dear boy, events!” - Harold Macmillan (UK Prime Minister 1957-1963) Whether Macmillan ever uttered these famous words in response to a question about what makes governments change actions is open to conjecture, but he gets…

August 17, 2017 Read more

Competitive Intelligence is Different on Each Side of the Atlantic. Can Risk Assessment Bridge the Water?

Competitive Intelligence | Strategy

The adoption of competitive intelligence (CI) programs and practices is notably lower in Europe than the United States due to contrasting economic, cultural, political, and legal factors. One way to encourage the implementation of an…

April 26, 2017 Read more

Are you collecting Competitor Information or providing Competitive Intelligence? Ten signs to help you decide.

Competitive Intelligence | Strategy

While at the recent Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals event in 2015, I was surprised by a growing gap in the field. All around the exhibit hall, in the presentations and in networking discussions, there were deep…

June 8, 2015 Read more

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