From Knowledge to Intelligence

by Helen N. Rothberg, G. Scott Erickson

In the New Economy, intelligence will be essential for firms to gain competitive advantage not just information or knowledge. Competitive intelligence, or the strategic gathering of knowledge about competitors, climate, trends, new products, has a long and successful history of generating competitive advantage. In this book, Rothberg and Erickson demonstrate how corporations can combine their competitive intelligence gathering with their internal knowledge management gathering into one dynamic system. Using real-world cases from the corporate world, the authors show how the strategic use of this combined system generates measurable competitive advantage. Topics covered include how be develop your strategy for sharing and gathering knowledge across the value chain, sustainable product development and innovation, manufacturing improvement, CRM and marketing, and developing a corporate-wide global knowledge strategy.

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought it a decent overview with some provisos:

1. I felt they exaggerated the differences between Knowledge Management and Competitive Intelligence--playing up the weaknesses of KM for rhetorical effect. It is true that it is "too often a library function" but it is certainly not always such. The authors understandably want to emphasize that CI actively seeks knowledge in response to questions and problems where KM usually collects. But it is also not true that KM programs NEVER go outside the firm to collect information.
2. Their use of the gimicky "SPF" factor (Strategic Protection Factor) which is supposed to help calculate KM and CI risks got repetitive. Their lists of factors to consider (national, industry and organizational) in evaluating the KM and CI risks were interesting and possibly useful in ensuring that the evaluator has covered all the factors. I just didn't think it necessary to keep returning to their SPF categories in order to think about risks.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crisp and cleanly-written. A brisk-reading introduction to linking knowledge management and business intelligence.