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The Secret Language of Competitive Intelligence: How to See Through and Stay Ahead of Business Disruptions, Distortions, Rumors, and Smoke Screens
THE ART OF SMART . . . how not to get blindsided by the competition
Your key competitor has a cost advantage and you can’t for the life of you figure out why or how.
• A new technology or competitor is on the horizon that will completely upset the applecart in your business
as Google is now doing in advertising and Wal-Mart has done in retailing.
• You think a key competitor may drastically drop prices or perhaps roll out a significant new product. What can you do to ascertain what their major moves will be?
Competitive intelligence, the ability to see through or stay ahead of your competition, is the unspoken, hidden key to success. It is the means to knowing a customer’s strategic thinking, a rival’s cost structure when making a bid, or a competitor’s new product plans. Much as in a game of chess, you must think many moves ahead of your rivals—exactly the advantage competitive intelligence can give you.
Leonard Fuld provides the tools to cut through the smoke screens and rumors that distort reality and
• How to avoid becoming your own worst enemy by removing blinders that can hide a competitor’s threatening moves
• How to see your competitor’s vulnerability and take advantage of the easily exploitable opportunities it presents
• How to run a war game to anticipate a rival’s pricing moves, new product introduction, or distribution strategy, and even to avoid being surprised by new entrants who play by different rules altogether
For more than twenty-five years, Leonard Fuld has been developing groundbreaking ways for managers to stay two steps ahead of the competition, providing effective ways of finding out about pricing, new product rollouts, strategic alliances, outsourcing, and cost of operations. In The Secret Language of Competitive Intelligence he shows how to take data that is widely avail-able to everyone, think critically about it, and convert it into highly refined intelligence that leads to effective market-based decisions.
Table of Contents
DISRUPTIONS, DISTORTIONS, RUMORS, AND SMOKE Page 1
Just Another Day in the Office
Chapter 1 THE ART OF Page19
How Intelligence Insight Helps Win the Game of Risk and Reward
Chapter 2 REALITY Page 45
Remove the Blinders
Chapter 3 WILL GOOGLE BEAT MICROSOFT?: Page 69
Using War Games to See Three Moves Ahead
Chapter 4 MAKE ME INTO A Page 119
Seeing the Trees to Understand the Forest
Chapter 5 EARLY Page 135
Getting Intelligence on Competitors That May Not Exist in a World That Has Not Arrived
Chapter 6 THE INTERNET HOUSE OF Page 165
Seeing Through the Confusion to Gather Intelligence Gems
Chapter 7 COMPETITIVE Page 211
How Rothschild, Buffett, Walton, Dell, and Branson Saw Clearly and Others Did Not
Chapter 8 DAY TO Page 237
Integrating Intelligence with Your Work
Chapter 9 THE BIG UNANSWERED Page269
Notes 285
Acknowledgments 293
Index 297
Your key competitor has a cost advantage and you can’t for the life of you figure out why or how.
• A new technology or competitor is on the horizon that will completely upset the applecart in your business
as Google is now doing in advertising and Wal-Mart has done in retailing.
• You think a key competitor may drastically drop prices or perhaps roll out a significant new product. What can you do to ascertain what their major moves will be?
Competitive intelligence, the ability to see through or stay ahead of your competition, is the unspoken, hidden key to success. It is the means to knowing a customer’s strategic thinking, a rival’s cost structure when making a bid, or a competitor’s new product plans. Much as in a game of chess, you must think many moves ahead of your rivals—exactly the advantage competitive intelligence can give you.
Leonard Fuld provides the tools to cut through the smoke screens and rumors that distort reality and
• How to avoid becoming your own worst enemy by removing blinders that can hide a competitor’s threatening moves
• How to see your competitor’s vulnerability and take advantage of the easily exploitable opportunities it presents
• How to run a war game to anticipate a rival’s pricing moves, new product introduction, or distribution strategy, and even to avoid being surprised by new entrants who play by different rules altogether
For more than twenty-five years, Leonard Fuld has been developing groundbreaking ways for managers to stay two steps ahead of the competition, providing effective ways of finding out about pricing, new product rollouts, strategic alliances, outsourcing, and cost of operations. In The Secret Language of Competitive Intelligence he shows how to take data that is widely avail-able to everyone, think critically about it, and convert it into highly refined intelligence that leads to effective market-based decisions.
Table of Contents
DISRUPTIONS, DISTORTIONS, RUMORS, AND SMOKE Page 1
Just Another Day in the Office
Chapter 1 THE ART OF Page19
How Intelligence Insight Helps Win the Game of Risk and Reward
Chapter 2 REALITY Page 45
Remove the Blinders
Chapter 3 WILL GOOGLE BEAT MICROSOFT?: Page 69
Using War Games to See Three Moves Ahead
Chapter 4 MAKE ME INTO A Page 119
Seeing the Trees to Understand the Forest
Chapter 5 EARLY Page 135
Getting Intelligence on Competitors That May Not Exist in a World That Has Not Arrived
Chapter 6 THE INTERNET HOUSE OF Page 165
Seeing Through the Confusion to Gather Intelligence Gems
Chapter 7 COMPETITIVE Page 211
How Rothschild, Buffett, Walton, Dell, and Branson Saw Clearly and Others Did Not
Chapter 8 DAY TO Page 237
Integrating Intelligence with Your Work
Chapter 9 THE BIG UNANSWERED Page269
Notes 285
Acknowledgments 293
Index 297
- GenresBusiness
309 pages, Hardcover
First published May 23, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 14, 2021
Quite interesting and enlightening if you want to go deeper into ci than "just the competition" usual
January 22, 2008
This book may or may not be a 3-star book in terms of actual CI how-to, but the author effectively used storytelling to get his points across and I can't find fault with that, especially after I just slogged through Michael Porter's 1998 Competitive Advantage book.
June 22, 2007
Good Book. Some what text orientated, but very informative.
March 29, 2013
A should-read book on competitive intelligence for knowledge workers who want to be in executive role and entrepreneurs.
September 26, 2017
Never finished reading this book, just thumbed through it and found some good stuff that would apply to any product, service, or industry in todays marketplaces.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews