The State of Competitive Intelligence within. New Zealand Private and Public Sector Organisations, страница 30

While there are positive percentages the understood categories from all industry types, there are high percentages in the neutral and not understood categories.  This would suggest that there are still perceived issues to the effective use of competitive intelligence within the surveyed industries. 

Table 10.12 provides the results of all surveyed respondent’s to question 9 and “your company and staff are supportive and active in promoting knowledge management and competitive intelligence”. 

Table 10.12: 

Analysis from these results suggest that there is a high awareness and acknowledgment of competitive intelligence compared knowledge management value, as presented in Table 10.8 (pg 53) and Table

10.9 (pg 54). 

Surprisingly, Industry D type companies which had been categorised with a Strategic Protection Factor of 45: High knowledge management risk and High competitive intelligence risk (Rothberg and Erickson, 2005), had a lower percentage compared to the other SPF Industry types in Table 10.9 (pg 54), suggesting there is a gap between the company’s goals of managing knowledge management and competitive intelligence and actual expectations of staff.

All three tables report a high percentage in the Neutral category for knowledge management and competitive intelligence factors, suggesting that there are still perceived issues. If unresolved, these issues will become barriers to the development and acceptance of knowledge management and competitive intelligence.

Key findings to the relationship between Knowledge Management and Competitive Intelligence

The research indicates the following key findings:

ƒ Particularly with type D industries, there is a considerable gap between the acceptance that developing and sharing knowledge is imperative for their success and the reality of their practice. In successfully managing and understanding the importance of knowledge management, 63% of this industry believed that the importance of managing knowledge to grow and develop their company is understood, but could be managed better. Interestingly, 13% of the same industry believed that knowledge management was only neutral.

ƒ All of the respondents strongly agreed (68%) or agreed (32%) that there is a link between knowledge management and competitive intelligence.  However, the results from the survey also suggest that there is a greater understanding and management of competitive intelligence (29% understood this element and believed it was well managed) compared to knowledge management (18% understood this element and believed it was well managed).

ƒ While the results identified positive percentages in “understood” categories from all industry types, there were high percentages in the neutral and not understood categories.  This would suggest that there are still perceived issues with the effective use of competitive intelligence and knowledge management. If unresolved will become barriers to these elements.

ƒ As identified in the content analysis, interviewed respondents stated that within New Zealand there were inadequate knowledge channels (i.e. domestic competitive intelligence sources) to gain intelligence on their competitors and/or the marketplace.