A New Archetype for Competitive Intelligence

McGonagle and Vella maintain that competitive intelligence as we know it is just the first step toward the creation of true corporate intelligence. Their book thus explores ways in which new channels of communication and new uses of information and intelligence will change corporations, and how these changes can be anticipated now in an organization’s strategic planning, crisis management, benchmarking, reverse engineering, and defensive intelligence activities. In doing so, they introduce readers to new techniques, such as shadow benchmarking and fractal management analysis. Readable, with useful checklists, forms, reminders, and drawing from real world cases, this book will be essential reading for executives in the public and private sectors, and their colleagues in the academic business community.

Vella and McGonagle premise their book on the evidence that modern companies throughout the world are undergoing radical, involuntary transformations, the result of an explosion of raw information suddenly available to them. Not only does this demand new ways to collect, process, and use information, but also a new way to look at and link information sources that until now have been unconnected. After discussing the importance of intelligence today and its greater importance tomorrow, Vella and McGonagle develop the concept of Cyber-Intelligence(TM), then show how it applies to strategy-creation, marketing, crisis management, benchmarking, and other organizational functions. They turn next to data gathering in the context of their Cyber-Intelligence(TM) concept, ending with a thoughtful discussion of where C-I is going next.

JOHN J. McGONAGLE, JR., is an attorney, economist, university lecturer, and author or coauthor of seven business books, as well as numerous journal articles. A member of the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, he is book review editor for the Comparative Intelligence Review and managing partner of The Helicon Group, Blandon, Pennsylvania.

CAROLYN M. VELLA is Founding Partner of The Helicon Group, and one of the pioneers of competitive intelligence. Listed in numerous directories of leaders in business and finance and formerly a member of the National Advisory Panel for the National Center for Citizen Involvement, she is coauthor of three previous books with Mr. McGonagle, including two published by Quorum: Competitive Intelligence in the Computer Age (1987) and Improving Business Planning Using Competitive Intelligence (1988).