The State of Competitive Intelligence within. New Zealand Private and Public Sector Organisations, страница 32

To understand a company / organisation’s perceived value of competitive intelligence, this research tailored the survey questionnaire to determine three key competitive intelligence areas, and they were:

•  Current competitive intelligence practices 

•  Financial expenditure on competitive intelligence.

•  Current perceived value of competitive intelligence.

Current competitive intelligence practices 

As identified on page 13 of the Literature Review. Rouach and Santi (2001) identified five attitude categories (Sleepers, Reactive, Active, Assault and Warrior) on how companies conducted and viewed competitive intelligence (2001). Applying Rouach and Santi (2001) framework, Question 16 asks: ‘Which category would you best describe your company / organisations approach towards Competitive Intelligence’.

•  Sleeper: No deliberate competitive intelligence activity and as a company, we believe we have all the information in-house to operate a business. 

•  Reactive: While we do not have formal competitive intelligence operations or dedicated competitive intelligence resources, we do some ad hoc Competitive Intelligence exercises when challenged for market share by a competitor.

•  Active: We do actively operate a competitive intelligence operation, which enables us to anticipate market opportunities and threats rather than reacting to them.  However, our competitive intelligence operation is informal and not structured (i.e. we do not follow any formal competitive intelligence methods, like SWOT, Competitor Analysis etc). 

•  Assault and Warrior: We take Competitive Intelligence very seriously and devote considerable resources to our competitive intelligence operations and conduct market gained and lost scenarios through the use of a formal competitive intelligence structure.

The results identified that 44% of the respondents operated a reactive competitive intelligence operation and 35% believe that their company/organisations operated an active competitive intelligence operation. Seven responses (21%) believe that their company were operating an assault and warrior competitive intelligence operations and included the following industries:

•  Construction (1 response)           • Recruitment (1 response)

•  Finance, Insurance & Real Estate (2 responses)        • Retail Trade (2 responses)  

•  Health care and Pharmaceuticals (1 response)           

Six of the assault and warrior companies had a turn-over of $51 million and over, the other company had a lower turn-over of between $11 and $50 million, but were part of a larger parent company (who operated in a higher turn-over category) who assisted with their competitive intelligence. 

Table 12.0 provides results to question 16 and Figure 12.1 provides a chart by competitive intelligence attitude and by industry. 

Table 12.0 competitive intelligence attitudes

Figure 12.1 competitive intelligence attitudes by Industry