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What is Competitive Intelligence - a brief guide

Strategy, Training, Research Services for Competitive & Marketing Intelligence

AWARE: UK competitive intelligence consultants offering competitor analysis and research services, competitive intelligence training & workshops and CI and marketing strategy consultancy.

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AWARE Competitive Intelligence Resources
Recommended Web Sites for CI Research

UNDER CONSTRUCTION - Content below for testing only!

Sites checked: 26 October 2006

Topic Index
UK Newspapers & News Sources
Major European Newspapers & News Sources
Other English Language News Sources (USA, Canada, Australasia, S Africa, and other countrie)
News Aggregators

Global Search Engines

The following are the main global search engines. There are also a number of other older search engines still available that use the databases of the search engines below. For example, Go, Inforseek, Altavista and Alltheweb all use the Yahoo! search functions and database, etc.

Google - Currently the most popular search engine - with considerable flexibility for advanced searching, including

Search Directories & Meta-Search engines

As well as the major search engines described above there are many smaller, regional and specialist search services, including some industry specific services (e.g. for searching specific topic or industry areas - law, finance, etc.). Some of these are listed under the relevant sections. The search tools listed here are more general or have features that make them noteworthy.

Open Directory - a human edited list of millions or web-sites, where each is vetted and approved as worthy of

Blog, news group and discussion forum searching

Searching blogs, podcasts, discussion forums and news groups can provide crucial information for competitive intelligence. This gives a small selection of tools that can help in this area.

Clusty - Clusty's blog search tool.

Invisible Web Searching and other search utilities

Research has shown that the vast majority of web-sites are never indexed by search engines. Many web-pages are now created dynamically from databases and so cannot be found. One approach is to use an invisible/deep web search tool to locate content held in subject or topic databases. The list below gives major invisible web search tools, as well as some tools to learn more about finding information

CompletePlanet - search thousands of databases through CompletePlanet

We try and keep all links up-to-date. However sites frequently change or disappear. Please let us know if you find any dead links, or if you want us to add your site onto this page.
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AWARE News

Arthur Weiss comments on ethics case study hosted on competitive intelligence case website.

Arthur Weiss, AWARE's managing director, commented on a recent case study written by Tom Hawes of JT Hawes Consulting LLC. The case study looked at the issues involved when a company obtained proprietary material from a supplier detailing key product development strategies from a major competitor. The commentary looked at the ethical and legal issues involved in using such material as well as the wider issue of how companies should handle CI ethical breaches in general.

Listen to an audio commentary on the case, complementing the written case comments.

(Click here if the audio-slide bar doesn't appear. You may need to wait while the audio loads).

Books - Competitors (Fahey)

Recommended Book

Competitive-Intelligence-in-the-UK
Competitive Intelligence: Gathering, Analysing and Putting it to Work
Christopher Murphy
Buy UK £ or US$

Read our review of this book

If you are interested in learning about competitive intelligence with a UK / European focus then this book is for you. Most books on CI are written by US authors and take a US perspective. They fail to note the significant differences between what is available in the US and Europe and the UK. For example, in the US the US Freedom of Information Act is key for finding a lot of information. Such legislation has only recently been enacted in the UK and the type of information available is more limited. In contrast, financial information is much easier to obtain in the UK than the US. Murphy's book redresses the balance and fills a gap in guiding the CI newcomer on how to gather CI in Europe.

One of the best sections is a detailed examination of the sources and types of financial CI information that can be obtained within the UK. In fact I think this is unique. Of all the CI books I've read - none give anything like the same depth on this crucial topic.

For a thorough review of this book check out FreePint's book review.

For more recommendations visit our book selection.

Quick Tip: Questions

Quick Tip

A key competitive intelligence skill is the ability to distinguish what you do know from what you don't know. The effort is then to find out sources for the unknown information - as the great English writer, Dr Samuel Johnson said:

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Unfortunately even with the knowledge there can be problems. Lewis Branscomb - the US physicist and Harvard management professor once said:

People rarely distinguish among data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. But they are as different from each other and as interlocking as starch molecules, flour, bread, and the flavorful memory of a superb morning croissant.

The aim of competitive & marketing intelligence is to turn data into something that can lead to competitive advantage in the same way that your morning croissant or loaf of bread depends on flour and water interacting to make something that is more than just a mixture of the raw ingredients.

Competitive Intelligence Training

Do you need to
know more about
Competitive Intelligence?

We offer in-house Competitive Intelligence Training, customised to your requirements.
Find out about our training services today!

Finding Competitive Intelligence using Online Sources

AWARE consultants are experts at discovering competitor information online and have developed a market-leading course on Finding Competitive Intelligence using Online Sources. This course has been given as an in-house course to numerous companies across industries (IT, publishing, telecoms, chemicals....) and countries, as well as publicly at SCIP annual and European conferences, the London International Online Information Conferences and other similar events.

The workshop has received high praise for its unique approach to finding competitive intelligence on the Internet. The workshop - available as a half-day or full day in-house training course - teaches attendees how to find actionable competitive intelligence rather than just present a list of sources that quickly date. Like all AWARE's in-house training, the course can be customised to focus on industry or competitive area.

For more information on this workshop and how it can help you become a more effective Internet researcher check out our Competitive Intelligence Training and ask us about our courses on finding CI information.

Our services in competitive intelligence research, competitor analysis and CI training will help you integrate and use competitive and marketing intelligence in your business, strategic and marketing planning processes. Whether you need research, advice or training, our mission is to support our clients so that they achieve their growth objectives.

For the best UK & European competitive intelligence and competitor analysis services, contact us today.

AWARE Phone numbers: 0845 430 9125 (International: +44 20 8954 9121). Fax: 0845 430 9126 (International: +44 20 8954 2102)

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Last page / site update: Wednesday, June 9, 2010