guest column
Why Is CI Methodology Still
Behind CI Technology Tools?
Avner Barnea, A.B. Projects
A recent article by Ken Sawka
— based on an online survey of more
than 1,000 middle managers of large
companies, conducted by the global
consulting firm Accenture — looked
at the different ways corporations deal
with huge amounts of information
(Sawka 2007). Has the information
revolution made organizations smarter?
The results of this survey suggest that
the answer is no.
“These findings show that
companies are failing to get the right
information to their employees,”
said Royce Bell, CEO of Accenture
Information Management Services.
“People and organizations cannot keep
up with the volume of information
produced by technological innovation.”
Making information more useful
is not achieved by better distribution
tools. Billions of dollars have been
spent on better ways to manage and
disseminate information, yet managers
are more frustrated than ever that
they can’t get the information they
need. Another study, by the American
Productivity and Quality Center
(APQC 2003), urges competitive
intelligence practitioners to become
more effective in supporting strategic
decisions by increasing the quality of
their final products.
Technology Developments
Over the past 10 years, certain
information technology developments
have been relevant to competitive
intelligence. How have these
developments affected the use of
advanced tools by CI personnel? How
have they contributed to the decision-
making process in their firms? (See
sidebar 1 for a summary.)
56 SCIP 2007 www.scip.org Competitive Intelligence Magazine
Progress in the development of
technological tools that meet the needs
of competitive intelligence is similar
to progress in the broader issues of
information technology. For CI, the new
tools primarily improve the information-
gathering process and enable coordinated
access to information in both external
and internal databases. However,
various research studies point out that,
unfortunately, very few tools are capable
of efficiently supporting the complete
intelligence cycle. Fulfilling needs in the
analysis phase is crucial to CI’s overall
contribution to the decision-making
process.
CI Methodology
People who work in competitive
intelligence encounter difficulties
in dealing with vast quantities of
raw information. CI professionals
waste time trying to integrate large
amounts of information to support
their analyses, while they rely on their
accumulated experience, memory, and
understanding to attribute meaning to
the information. This method is not
good enough — it does not properly
meet the needs of either the CI analysts
or their internal users
Advances in technology have
allowed us to access more information,
but the technology does not make a
high-quality distinction between signal
and noise. Even after using automated
selection tools, much information
remains to be reviewed — a “man in
the loop” is required to make sure a
quality distinction has been achieved.
In my view, this will not change in the
near future.
The methodology has not been
developed sufficiently to make
optimal use of all the information
competitive intelligence professionals
can gather. CI analysis still relies on
procedures developed 10 to 15 years
ago. Building the overall picture can
be very complex and is influenced by
memory, experience, and unconscious
perceptions.
One of the main problems
in executing high-level analysis is
avoiding the analyst’s own cognitive
biases or blind spots. These biases
often have a significant impact on the
way analysts perform their work and
generate results. Improved analytical
tools will identify relevant information
or links that will illuminate the
analyst’s blind spots, especially if the
information is simultaneously shared
through networks with other analysts
performing a similar activity.
Improving CI output
Decision-makers expect to receive
high-quality information. Investments
in information technology have
brought significant improvements
in the information they can apply
to routine management but not in
analyzed information. Because of the
investments that have been made in
recruiting, training, supporting, and
employing analysts, decision makers
have high expectations for CI output
— but these expectations are not
being fulfilled. These executives are
often frustrated, although they find it
difficult identify the specific problem.
And even if they believe the problem
lies in the analysis phase, they do not
know how to resolve it — or even if it
is solvable.
What is needed after the gathering
and basic selection of information?

Sidebar 1: Summary of technology developments
1. There has been significant
progress in Internet search
efficiency. Search engines are
becoming very powerful and are
capable of tracking almost every
piece of information accessible
to them. One of the results is
an increasingly large amount of
available information.
2. Search engines are constantly
expanding their information
gathering to include informal
sources such as blogs, chat
rooms, and so on, where
increasingly relevant information
is generated.
3. New tools are capable
of sending information
automatically as an outcome
of distinct definitions of
information needs (alerts,
customized RSS feeds).
4. In the initial selection of
information, technological tools
are capable of focusing on the
searcher’s demands by referring
to previous definitions of needs.
However, this capability lags
behind competitive intelligence
needs.
5. Many information companies
recognize the need for
• Development of high-quality text
analysis to increase the learning
process.
• Creation of automatic links among
pieces of related information to
enhance understanding through
inference analysis.
• Capability to edit information from
multiple sources.
• Identification of information
gaps as defined by CI directors or
decision makers.
Volume 10 • Number 3 • May-June 2007 SCIP 2007 www.scip.org 57
improved information and
intelligence, and are supplying
targeted business information
that they collect and analyze in
response to specific requests.
6. Available tools have text
analysis capabilities, but they
have a long way to go before the
results are focused and reliable.
7. Most information tools have
high-level gathering capabilities,
including the ability to deal with
large quantities of information.
Some tools have visualization
abilities to facilitate analysis.
8. Tools disseminate information
to predetermined recipients
and solicit immediate feedback,
allowing decision makers and
others in the corporation
to stay up to date and
communicate without delay.
Better tools for management
control are included in support
information systems.
9. Search engines have exceeded
expectations in their ability
to gather information quickly,
leading to a significant increase
in the quantity and quality of
information that can be derived
from external sources.
The answer is not necessarily found
in one specific analytical application.
The practical solution lies in the
integration of various solutions that can
handle huge amounts of information
and analyze it using both manual
and automatic tools. The competitive
intelligence analyst should have the
tools to initiate procedures and use
the results in his or her analysis. There
is still much room for improvement
in the technological capabilities that
guest column
10. Information is available in all
types of digital media (e.g.,
text, photos, video, audio).
This availability vastly improves
the diversity of resources and
makes it easier to respond to
the requirements of customers
and to create a comprehensive
picture.
11. Similar improvements have
been made in receiving and
mining information from internal
sources, but the technology
has not yet been satisfactorily
implemented to enable CI
professionals to build a
comprehensive picture based on
the convergence of information
from both external and internal
sources.
12. Only a few technological tools
have analysis capabilities that
can improve the quality of the
analysis of information received
from multiple sources; for
example, creating automatic
links among various pieces of
information to enhance the
analysis (see Barnea 2005 for a
discussion).
will contribute to a better quality of
analysis.
Quality of analytical work
The challenges in the national
intelligence field are similar: There
is always a need for additional
information; at the same time,
the quality of the analytical work
is not high enough. The analyst’s
chronic problem is a lack of relevant
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Sidebar 2: Capabilities of CI tools developed in Israel
In Israel, the competitive
intelligence system is viewed
as a number of logically related
activities rather than a cycle
in which activities follow one
another in a predetermined order.
The competitive intelligence
professionals who conduct these
activities interact with each other
according to the requirements
of specific tasks, and they are
supported by advanced information
technology tools. The activities
include the following:
• Planning and direction of
collection and research.
• Collection, input, and storage of
unprocessed materials and data
via automatic Web collection
tools (open source intelligence).
• Integration with internal
databases and field reports, as
well as high-level integration with
desktop tools.
• Collation of materials and data,
and basic processing, including
information, but this gap can only be
bridged by better analysis. Having more
information does not necessarily mean
more knowledge; in fact, reviewing a
high volume of information can distract
from the close attention needed for
effective analysis.
Research studies conducted
and publicized by the security and
intelligence community in Israel
(usually after significant setbacks
and faults) show that the problem
frequently develops during analysis and
creation of intelligence rather than in
the information-gathering stage. Not
only are the analysts influenced by
various biases, but it is very difficult to
review the processes that led to their
conclusions. The 9/11 Commission
Report shows clearly that the primary
problem was not a shortage of
58 SCIP 2007 www.scip.org Competitive Intelligence Magazine
follow-up on the fulfillment of
key intelligence topic assignments
and integration with existing
structured databases.
• Use of powerful search engines
for analysis, research, and
drawing inferences that lead to
intelligence creation.
• Additional analysis and research
to create intelligence from
the broad arena down to
differentiated intelligence.
• Creation of reports and
dissemination to internal users.
• Evaluation and feedback.
These tools and activities help
competitive intelligence personnel
infer intelligence on the basis of
links between various pieces of
information collected from primary
and secondary sources. The CI
analyst uses strong visualization
tools to trace hidden relationships
and create applicable intelligence.
information but poor analysis and
the inability to see the big picture.
One solution is to increase the scale
of teamwork and information sharing
supported by analytical tools.
A seven stage approach
Figure 1 shows the flow of
information in stages, from gathering
and selection through analysis and
dissemination of the intelligence.
The first stage is to set up a clear,
systematic methodology in accordance
with the complete intelligence cycle.
The methodology should be based
on dynamic-mapping-supported
technological tools with inference
capabilities. The gathered information
can be kept in a dedicated, indexed
system to enable advanced retrieval and
further use.
In the second stage, the
information is evaluated, and linked
automatically and manually to existing
information. The evaluation is done
by looking at the new information and
comparing it with existing information.
Nonrelevant information is purged
from the system.
In the third stage, the information
is evaluated against the organization’s
key intelligence topics (KITs), and
whatever matches those needs is
retained. Identified gaps in the
gathering process are precisely defined,
and a decision is made regarding
further gathering and evaluation of
information.
In the fourth stage, the analyst
decides whether to send the
information to relevant recipients as an
alert or an initial intelligence report,
or keep it for further use as part of a
weekly report, special comprehensive
report, situation report, or intelligence
briefing. Using visual tools to illustrate
links among pieces of information
allows the analyst to see the big picture
at a glance.
The fifth stage involves preparing
a draft analytical report, either on the
initiative of the competitive intelligence
professional or in response to a request
from the decision makers. This draft
report contains
• information details
• analysis of primary meanings,
predictions, or opinions by internal
professionals and experts
• proposals for further activity
In the last stages, the final
analytical report is sent to the relevant
decision makers, with links to previous
reports. The competitive intelligence
unit may be asked to collect additional
information and analyze it. Feedback
and evaluations from the internal
recipients of the report are critical
— they allow the CI unit to update the
KITs and guide future information-
gathering and analysis.
 guest column

Improved decisions about matters

Reply Information Information of competitive strategy start with asking
from from
to KIT
External Sources Internal Sources for insights about current and future
competitors, customers, markets, and
Gathering
Stage 1 industry conditions. Such insights are
generated by trained and experienced
Reply
to
analysts, and supported by databases,
Query shared workspaces, and dedicated
competitive intelligence systems.
Advanced analytical tools developed
Auto-recognition
in Israel can enhance the quality of
CI reports, but they have not yet
been widely disseminated to global
New Additional
Information Information corporations (see sidebar 2).

Query Selection
Stages 2, 3
References
American Productivity and Quality
Center (APQC). (2003).
Advanced Developing a successful competitive
Data base
intelligence program. www.apqc.
org/portal/apqc/ksn?paf_gear_
id=contentgearhome&paf_dm=full
Further
gathering
Alert Links to
Existing and new
&pageselect=detail&docid=100685
Store
information
Barnea, Avner. (2005). Link analysis as
a tool for competitive intelligence.
Analysis
Stages 4, 5 Competitive Intelligence Magazine
Preparing
Draft
vol. 8, no. 4 (July/August): 28–30.
Final
Report Sawka, Ken. (2007). Lots of data,
few insights. Outward Insights,
(February) www.outwardinsights.
com
Dissemination Feedback Decision-makers

Figure 1: Flow of information
Conclusions
Insight comes primarily from
analysis, not just from gathering
information. Competitive intelligence
methodology is lagging behind the
available technological tools, because
CI analysts lack awareness of the new
tools. These advanced analytical tools
can be used to develop new links
and inferences and thus gain better
understanding and knowledge.
Dissemination
Stages 6, 7
The final value will always be
added by the analysts, but analysts
can be significantly supported by
technological tools that gather and
sort information. Some competitive
intelligence professionals resist the use
of these potentially valuable systems.
The systems can help create higher
value final intelligence products by
facilitating the pre-analysis structuring
of information.
Avner Barnea is a former senior member
of the Israeli intelligence community. He
is a consultant in the field of competitive
intelligence and business strategy in Israel
and abroad. Avner is a guest lecturer on
CI in various MBA programs in Israel,
including at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem Business School, and in various
business executive training programs,
such as the LAHAV Executive Education
programs at Tel Aviv University. He has
extensive experience in the integration
of advanced CI systems into Israeli
corporations. He can be reached at
avnerpro@netvision.net.il.

Volume 10 • Number 3 • May-June 2007 SCIP 2007 www.scip.org 59