Moving to Wordpress

Not sure how many people have bookmarked this weblog. I've now moved my Blog to WordPress - and have written two new posts, with several more planned. I prefer the WordPress interface - it's easier to write, edit and make changes. The new site has all the same functionality as this one - plus additional elements. For instance, you can now subscribe and get told when I update the site. You can also contact me directly. So for future updates, go to www.find-it-out.co.uk Hope you like the new look - let me know!

Reading the news

In 1979 I visited Turkey for the first time. I like Turkey - it's a great and beautiful country with lots of history. It also shows how Islam and extremism don't go hand-in-hand and how an Islamic country can also be a liberal democracy. Like all free countries, it has its share of extremists who spout forth nonsense that would guarantee a jail sentence or death in the autocracies that govern most of the world. However that is not what this post is about - although Turkey is the seed for the post.

It was August 1979, and I was backpacking, staying in cheap hostels. A standard item of conversation back then was whether it was safe to travel through Afghanistan on the overland route to India. Turkey was one of the first stopping places on this route that travelled through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and on to India.

From a 1970s Trailfinders brochure showing suggested routes to India

Travellers were talking about the attacks on tourists journeying through the country and how some tourist buses had been shot at. 

A postcard sent to me by a friend I'd met when travelling through Europe who wanted to go on the overland routes to India. Karla had hoped to go through Afghanistan but as I've highlighted, felt it wasn't safe. This postcard was sent the day before the Iran hostage crisis and shows the atmosphere in Iran at the time. 

I knew nothing about Afghanistan at all and when I got back to the UK started to read up. There was very little in the press - and certainly no headlines. However reading between the lines, I realised that not only was there a civil war going on, but that this was threatening the Southern borders of the Soviet Union. The situation was unstable and something had to happen. 

Over Christmas in 1979, Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan with the aim of bringing back order to the country. The Soviet aim was not to colonise the country but to prevent the ferment from spreading and leading to sectarian movements on the Soviet borders. However that is not how the world, led by the USA saw things. This was the time of the cold war. Any way that the West could score points against the Soviet bear was legitimate. The initial response was massive anti-Soviet propaganda, ignoring the initial context. Later on, the US funded the Mujahaddin fighting against the Soviets, including Osama Bin Ledin - a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. 

My response however was different. I saw that the Soviet incursion had been an obvious solution to a problem that they faced, and that the correct approach was to treat it as such, rather than as a global problem. Afghanistan had been a flashpoint that the world had seemingly ignored. It led, eventually, to the break-up of the Soviet Union, when it became impossible to hide the costs in both lives and money by the secretive Soviets. I believe that Perestroika and the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union was partially a result of the Soviet's Afghan adventure. 

The point of all this is that newspapers publish 

1. what their editors view as of interest to their readership 
2. news when they have sufficient information for a story.

This is important for competitive intelligence, business analysis and common sense. Without this realisation people are likely to jump to incorrect conclusions based on what they read. The only way to read a newspaper is to question each story and ask why it was published - to understand the hidden agenda. 

When there is insufficient information or where it is dangerous for journalists to publish a news story, then however potentially important that news story is, it won't get published. That is why so few bad news stories highlighting lack of freedom, atrocities and so on are published on the autocracies that rule much of the world. Instead, news focuses on countries where there is a relative freedom to publish, and journalists can report on what is happening unimpeded by the authorities.

If something is not fashionable then it won't be published or what is published will correspond to what people want to read. This is the case with much reporting on Israel. Israel is now seen as a "shitty little country" (as described by a former French Ambassador to the UK). It's definitely not fashionable to support it - despite the fact that it is the only full democracy in its region with a free and functioning press, Arab parliamentarians, and equal rights for all its citizens. It has also been at war for over 60 years - with its enemies being countries that, in general, are totalitarian and that imprison, torture and execute dissenters. It has been attacked with missiles fired daily at its cities, yet is lambasted when it responds - most recently by blockading the territories from where the missiles were fired (Gaza). Israel is condemned for trying to protect its citizens and for fighting a territory ruled by a group, Hamas, that is viewed as a terrorist group by Western countries, including the US, the EU, Japan and Canada.

In contrast to the situation in Israel - where every action is microscopically analysed and hits the headlines, much less appears on newspaper front pages and as headline news about the very recent massacres of Uzbeks in Kyrygyzstan. Virtually nothing came out about the Syrian destruction of the city of Hama in 1982, in contrast to the blanket reporting of the events at Sabra & Chatila in the same year. Even in this case, Israel is blamed for the actual attacks while in reality the massacre was carried out by Christian Phalangists in revenge for earlier attacks on them by the Palestinians. The reason for all these examples is that much less information was available from Syria and Kyrygyzstan. Both countries don't have the free press that Israel has, and in both cases, publishing such news could lead to the journalists being arrested, and probably tortured or killed. As a result very little is seen.

The same selectivity appears in the business press too. Currently BP is under the spotlight for its responsibility for the US oil spill. Although I'm sure that BP bears much of the blame for this disaster, very little has been written about the other companies involved including Transocean and Halliburton. Although BP was the largest shareholder in the well, Texas based Anadarko Petroleum owned a quarter and the Mitsui Oil Exploration Company via its MOEX Offshore subsidiary owned 10%. Transocean owned the rig and of the 126 people working on the rig, 79 were Transocean employees (against only 7 BP employees). Halliburton cemented into place the casing for the well that blew. In fact, the other companies bear some of the blame - if only by not ensuring that best practice was followed and allowing BP to cut corners (if that is what happened). The US regulator, the Minerals Management Service, that had approved the well should also shoulder some responsibility.

It is now fashionable to attack BP - with President Obama (showing an anti-British prejudice), referring to the company as British Petroleum, when the correct name has been BP for many years, reflecting the fact that more of its employees are American than British (BP has 23,000 US employees and under half that number of British employees. Of its 9 senior executive members there are more non-UK members than UK ones with four US positions). The problem is that sometimes it is better for those in power to hide the truth - whether they run a company or a country. 

Competitive Intelligence means looking behind the news and doing an analysis to find the truth. That is not the role of newspapers. Their role is simple: to sell and make profits for their owners. If that means subjective reporting, then so be it. Fortunately the quality press sometimes does publish unfashionable news stories and carries out independent analysis. An excellent recent example is an article by Jose Maria Aznar - the Prime Minister of Spain between 1996-2004. Aznar writes (in the London Times - 17 June 2010) about Israel and how failure to support Israel threatens Western values overall. He states that the Gaza episode "is a distraction" and that "Israel is the West's best ally in a turbulent region". A shame that there is not more analysis of this type. As this is what true objectivity involves. 

Proof of Aznar's thesis can easily be found. For example, a recent Twitter tweet lamented the loss to the Moslem world of Andalucia, and advocated the route of the martyr, and reaching for life in the hereafter in preference to life in this one. 

@Jnoubiyeh the second we lost andalus we lost dignity. wars came 2 remind us again. We lost it was when we chose this life over hereafter

Unfortunately publicising such views are unfashionable and often suppressed - so instead we draw incorrect conclusions and victimise the victim (e.g. Israel) and praise the oppressor (e.g. Hamas).

Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics & Facebook

I've been impressed with the numbers of people using social networking sites - and the importance of social networking for marketing has become significant over the last few years.

Facebook claims 400 million users (i.e. nearly 6% of the global population that is approaching 7 billion people). I've always thought that this figure must include duplicate accounts - as I don't believe that most people in China, India, Africa and many other areas of the world have Facebook accounts (or even computers - although the numbers are growing). The World Bank stated that there were just under 300m Internet users in China and 52m in India in 2008. (There's a great graph of this at Google's Public Data tool - that shows that in 2008 there were around 1.5bn web-users).

Even taking account the exponential growth - let's assume that web users globally are now over 2 billion  people - Facebook's figures imply that 1 in 5 users have a Facebook account.

I know of many people who don't have an account and some who refuse to get one. In my age group (over 40), I'd guess that the majority don't. So where this 400m figure came from and what it includes is a key question.

It now seems that Facebook has been boosting it's membership figures. I just read this article from one of my favorite sites (www.pandia.com). Apparently Facebook has been telling advertisers that it has 1.6m users in Oslo. The trouble is that the greater Oslo metropolitan area only has 900,000 people. Facebook apparently counts members by IP address - and I guess that it is feasible that this could include users who access the site via Oslo based web-servers. However not if you consider the next statistic given. The Facebook advertiser tool says that there are 850,000 Facebook users between the ages of 20-29 in Norway - which is 235,000 more than the total numbers (613,000) in that age group.

This over-inflation isn't just a Norwegian issue. According to CheckFacebook.com (a site that tracks data from the Facebook advertising tool giving Facebook membership numbers), almost 63% of online users in the UK now have a Facebook account. That's 27m out of a total UK population of 62m. In some countries it's even higher. Apparently all (100%) Nicaraguan, Qatari and Bangladeshi web users also have a Facebook account, as do 99% of Indonesians, 98% of Filipinos, 97% of Venezuelans, and 85% of Turks.

It's possible that these statistics are true. However, if so, I'm sure that they also include occasional and infrequent users as well as dormant and duplicated accounts.

One of the most important types of competitive intelligence analysis is to not take everything at face value. When presented with figures, it's important to sense check them - wherever possible by using other sources (e.g. official population statistics). Only then should such data be used in decision making. You should also ask whether there is an incentive to exaggerate or under-estimate statistics. If there is such an incentive, it is likely that this will be done, at least in the published data. Decisions made using such erroneous or manipulated figures will probably be poor decisions and fail to achieve the expected results. In the case of Facebook, the incentive in exaggerating membership figures is that they can then boost their attractiveness to advertisers, and consequently their advertising revenues.

Quotations & Competitive Intelligence

I've been reading Seena Sharp's new book "Competitive Intelligence Advantage"

The book is good (at least so far) - and an easy read which is more than can be said for a lot of business books. More importantly Seena's approach corresponds with mine. She emphasises that competitive intelligence is not just about competitors but about understanding the total business environment and how it is changing, and using this knowhow to make effective business decisions. This means it's not just a how-to-do-it book like many of its competitors but a why-to-do-it book too. This is important. Many businesses still fail to understand why they need competitive intelligence. If you don't understand the need, why do it. Others see the focus as primarily on competitors - but they already "know" all about them so are "OK" (or so they believe). The book exposes this canard - and shows why surprise is so dangerous for companies.

Although so far, I have mostly praise for the book, there is one niggle. Making decisions on inaccurate intelligence is dangerous. It is always important to check facts first rather than to assume that just because something is common knowledge or sounds right it is correct. In the world generally, there have been many mistakes made based on information that turned out to be rumour or false. Part of the role of analysis is to verify information - and act accordingly. Failure to verify information is a route to strategy failure.

So what is my niggle. It relates to a quotation on page 20: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." This is a great quotation - and it is widely used. A search on the Internet turns up multiple examples - and most claim it was written by Charles Darwin, in his works looking at evolution. The problem is that Darwin almost certainly never said or wrote this. A few years ago, I wanted to use this quotation in an article I was writing - and needed to provide a reference. I searched through Darwin's complete works online and couldn't find it. I then contacted Nigel Rees, an expert on quotations who couldn't either. Replies to a post I made to the FreePint Bar suggested that the attribution was probably false (but nobody knew where it originally came from). The series of posts at FreePint both by me, and others, debunk a few more commonly attributed quotations too. (E.g. "Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics" was definitely not originally said by Mark Twain as many claim and possibly not by Disraeli either, as I and others had thought.

Whenever I use a quotation I try and attribute it - and give a reference for the source, where possible. Maybe it's because I'm pedantic or overly thorough. However I also believe it is part of the mindset needed for effective competitive intelligence. Just because something is commonly believed doesn't make it true and I wish Seena had either stated that the quotation was "attributed" to Darwin instead of being by Darwin - or found the source.

In fact, the source was probably a close follower of Darwin - such as JBS Haldane. And Haldane supplies a lesson for all involved in competitive intelligence: just because something is unexpected doesn't mean it won't happen.

A discussion between Haldane and a friend began to take a predictable turn. The friend said with a sigh, 'It's no use going on. I know what you will say next, and I know what you will do next.' The distinguished scientist promptly sat down on the floor, turned two back somersaults, and returned to his seat. 'There,' he said with a smile. 'That's to prove that you're not always right.  Found at Today In Science History's page on Haldane - quoting from: Clifton Fadiman (ed.), André Bernard (ed.), Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes (2000), 253.

RIP Kartoo

When I conduct training sessions on how to search I always emphasise that it's more important to know how to find information rather than to depend on a small selection of key web-sites.

Many searchers depend on their bookmark list but what happens when a key site disappears: if you don't know how to search you are stuck.

Searching isn't just going to google and typing your query in the search box. Expert searching demands that you consider where the information you are looking for is likely to be held, and in what format. It requires the searcher to understand the search tools they use - how they work and their strengths and weaknesses. Such skills are crucial when key sites disappear as happened in January with the small French meta-search engine, Kartoo.

Kartoo was innovative and presented results graphically. It enabled you to see links between terms and was brilliant for concept searching where you didn't really know where to start. Unfortunately it's now gone to cyber-heaven, or wherever dead web-sites disappear to. It will be missed - at least until something similar appears. Already Google's wonderwheel (found from the "options" link just above the search results") offers some of the functionality and graphic feel, and there are other sites that offer similar capabilities (e.g. Touchgraph). Kartoo however was special - it was simple, free and showed that Europeans can still come up with good search ideas.

Example of a Kartoo Search

Of course Kartoo isn't the first innovative site to disappear. Over the years, many great search tools have gone. Greg Notess lists some in his SearchEngineShowdown blog - and an article in Online magazine. There are more. How many people remember IIBM's Infomarket service - an early online news aggregator from 1995, or Transium.

In fact, it was learning that sites are mortal that led to my approach to searching: don't depend on a limited selection of sites but rather know how to find sites and databases that lead you to the information wanted. That's a key skill for all researchers and is as valid today in the Google generation as it was in the days before Google.

Google - public data explorer

I've just been pointed to a new Googlelabs initiative - the Google Public Data Explorer. This promises to be a useful tool for finding public data in one place. (It's always worth keeping an eye on GoogleLabs as they often bring out new ideas and products. These are kept together until ready to launch - and can be found from www.googlelabs.com.).

The data is not new - although i think some of the presentation is. I don't recall being able to manipulate the figures from Eurostat so easily (but then that may be because I've not had to use Eurostat for a while). Eurostat - the European Union's statistic service - is large and complex (or was). With Google a couple of key Eurostat databases (unemployment statistics, minimum wage, consumer price index) now become easily manipulable. Other databases include OECD, World Bank and a number of US databases.

Hopefully many more databases will be added - and eventually the service may become a one-stop-shop for global statistics, replacing the need to visit various local country statistics services (e.g. the UK's Office for National Statistics).

Even though there are currently only a handful of databases available many of the most important types of data looking at GDP, population trends, health, etc. are available - plus interesting, but probably less critical examples, such as Internet users per 100 of the population. In this example, I compared the UK and US with two of the emerging power-houses - China and India for Internet usage. I found it interesting that the UK had more users per 100 than the US but not surprising that China and India were so low, despite the total web user numbers in China being higher than those for the US and growing rapidly. It would have been possible to add any of the countries on the left to the chart. 

Unethical CI - out in the open!

As a competitive intelligence specialist, we try to practice what we preach - and keep an eye on our own competitors. In most cases, we view ourselves as complementers as much as we are also competitors. There is enough work for all of us - and the market is far from saturated.

Part of the task of a Competitive Intelligence consultancy is to show companies that competitive intelligence is a necessary business skill - and that it is legitimate and ethical to outsource competitor research to external consultants whatever can't be handled in-house. (Reasons for outsourcing include lack of time, lack of skills and experience and the need for an objective view - which can't be obtained by doing research in-house). In fact AWARE views training in competitive & marketing intelligence as a key element of its business mission, so as to raise CI/MI skills.

There are many ethical competitive intelligence consultants apart from us - in the USA there is Market Analytics, Fuld and Aurorawdc to name three. In Australia - the Mindshifts Group,  led by CI industry leader Babette Bensoussan is important. Within Europe there are similar consultancies. We link to a number of top CI consultancies on our alliances web pages.

Unfortunately there are also several companies that fall short ethically and even legally. I recently came across one - with a great domain name, but that's as far as it goes.  This "business intelligence" company (which I won't name for now, for legal reasons), openly states that they engage in industrial espionage.



Secondary research - their "light touch" is legitimate if it doesn't employ hacking or password cracking. However their in-depth research placing moles into the target company is highly unethical and probably illegal (depending on the information supplied, and any non-disclosure agreements signed by the agent and their "employer").

Such behaviour brings all competitive intelligence under suspicion - which is part of the rationale behind this post: to expose such shenanigans.

Fortunately this "business intelligence service"  doesn't come cheap and only very few (probably desperate) companies will avail themselves of such services. In fact the company actually implies this by saying on their web-site:

"We hope that you never need our services, but if you do, then you can be assurred of an excellent service."

Their charges range from £10,000 for the "light touch" research to £150,000 for their in-depth research (including "employee placement and surveillance"). Even this is not their top price. When looking at individuals, pricing ranges from £25,000 for "light touch" research verifying personal details, employment, connected people, etc. to £200,000 for fully in-depth analysis (lifetime checks, asset checks, lifestyle, etc.). Some assignments are charged at fees of up to £25,000 per day (although most are claimed to be a fraction of this).

To put things into context, we have never charged anything like £10,000 for pure desk research and from conversations with other consultants, they haven't either.

They claim that their "researchers" come from military, police and government service backgrounds - but they don't mention any business or marketing background. They seem to be ignoring, or perhaps do not even know the risks involved in industrial espionage and based on what they offer, I'd question whether they'd see the value in standard strategic analysis as a means for understanding competitors. (The US Economic Espionage Act, 1996 is just one risk. Even when companies don't go to law, there can be serious financial ramifications for espionage).

Instead of looking at public non-confidential intelligence that, when aggregated, can create a detailed picture of all aspects of a company they seem to prefer subterfuge. Such approaches may say what a company is currently planning but it won't help in understanding what the company is thinking or likely to do in the future

Interestingly this company is not as immune to standard CI investigation as they probably think. Standard secondary research suggests that they use a Plymouth, UK, based front company for finding work placements for their agents, and that their minimalist web-site has at least one hidden / secret directory - which can be found by searching for a robots.txt file. 

The value of information

I've probably said something like this before, but it's worth saying again.

This was part of a post by Amelia Kassel of MarketingBase - on the AIIP member mailing list.

I recall someone in a workshop I gave about using the Internet for CI about 10 years ago. I introduced the concept of fee-based databases and a young fellow from a business analyst firm raised his hand in front of group of more than 30 participants to stop me from proceeding. He didn't want to hear or learn about fee-based databases. He had tried them once and they were too hard to use. I asked what he did when couldn't find information he was looking for on the Internet and he didn't have an answer but said it didn't really matter.

I've also come across attitudes such as this - why pay for information when you can find it for free. That would be true and valid if the time required to find the information, and the work required to put it into a usable format, was the same. In reality this is rarely the case. The advantage of paying for information from services such as Factiva, Dialog and several other similar services is that you can save a lot of time. The information purchased will be formatted consistently - so it becomes much easier to edit for a report.

Further, relevant information is collected together so there is no need to check hundreds of potential sources. These services index thousands of sources in a way that users of the free services, including Google, can only dream about. As an example, on Factiva, you can specify that search terms appear in the first 50 (or 100 or whatever) words of an article, or within so many words of another term. They support full Boolean searching and wildcard searching far beyond what even the advanced search in Exalead offers.

If that was all such services offered then there could be an argument that with today's budgetary constraints, good researchers would first focus on the free sources. However many sources held won't even be available on the free web, as their publishers only make them available on a pay-to-use basis or don't keep full online archives. This means that unless the researcher has accounts with a multitude of publishers they won't get the material they need for decision making.

I think part of the secret of being a good researcher is knowing when to use free sources and when to use fee sources. I'm sure that a proportion of the information that is available on pay-to-use sources could be found for free - IF you looked long and hard enough. However employers pay you for your time - and just because something is free doesn't make it really free if you have had to spend a day finding it when you could have got it within 15 minutes by paying. Then there's the risk factors of NOT finding something at all!

People who feel it doesn't matter - that you can justify not paying for information - are actually high-risk employees. They may provide information that allows correct decision making to be made 80% of the time. Unfortunately the Pareto effect comes into play - and that 20% of the time they get it wrong represents 80% of the risk. Decisions made on inadequate data are likely to lead to serious consequences when they are wrong. Saying that you only did a Google search because Factiva cost too much won't save you or your company in such situations - as it will be too late.

CI versus corporate espionage: thoughts on an ABC News story

I read this news item from ABC news 'James Bond' Tactics Help Companies Spy on Each Other" and had only one thought: that guy is totally unethical and wrong.

A few years ago, an Israeli colleague commented to me that in his experience, most of the ex-secret service operatives who try and enter the commercial world of CI fail. The reason he said is that they don't know the boundaries of what is legitimate competitive intelligence collection and what is corporate espionage, and illegitimate. He also said that in many cases, they also have no real idea of budgets and what is valuable to a company strategically versus the cost of obtaining it. Most never had a budgetary role when working for the various national security services and so could not do a cost-benefit analysis effectively.

This story shows both examples. Purchasing the garbage from an organisation is not only unethical but strikes me as wasteful. Garbage is thrown away for a reason - it's not wanted and valueless. The majority of companies today have shredders and routinely shred anything that would be seen as highly sensitive. True, the mid-level material may be chucked, but not the high-level stuff. (And those that don't shred deserve what they get - I'd be surprised that any Fortune 500 companies don't have shredding contracts!)

As for the other shenanigans implied - any company that employed a consultant to use such techniques deserves to get sued and end up paying more than they gained. The trouble is some do - and the list of companies that learned the hard-way that espionage doesn't pay is still growing.

So let me make it clear: espionage is wrong, while CI is a legitimate practice that uses only ethical means to collect intelligence.

This involves declaring your identity and NOT collecting information that would be classed as secret or confidential. As Issur Harel the Israeli spy-chief responsible for capturing the Nazi war murderer, Eichmann, is reported to have said:

We do not deal with certainties. The world of intelligence is the world of probabilities. Getting the information is not usually the most difficult task. What is difficult is putting upon it the right interpretation. Analysis is everything. James Bond is not the real world.

Attacking a castle - or a competitor!

The leading management guru, Rosabeth Moss Kanter's, latest blog post discusses ways to attack a castle: Four Ways to Attack the Castle — And Get a Job, Get Ahead, Make Change.

Although the article is talking about job-seekers and change agents, the same applies to competitive intelligence and strategy, and I've sometimes used the same analogy in my training courses.

So how does attacking a strong fortress compare to competitive intelligence collection. Well - the approach that some still seem to think the best approach - is the full frontal attack. Go for the key contact and hope that they will speak to you. The problem is that these people tend to be surrounded by gatekeepers, guards and you may not even get their name, never mind getting to speak to them. This is the corporate equivalent of having hot oil poured down upon you.

Moss Kanter describes four other approaches that can also be used for CI collection.

1) Find other doors.
Rather than target the main entrance with your battering ram, look for a door that's not guarded. If you want to interview somebody, don't call switchboard and ask for the purchasing manager - as switchboard will ask what it's about and you will find yourself in an interminable voice-mail loop ending with a "send an email to suppliers@companyname.com". Instead, use networking tools - such as LinkedIn - to find the name of anybody involved in purchasing within the target company and ask to speak to them directly. Knowing the name means you get put through and bypass the switchboard gatekeeper.

2) Befriend the fringes.
Be polite. Switchboards get fed up with rude callers - so be friendly. Chat - and treat the operator with respect. They may know more than you think and you may get a name that way.

You won't get put through to the CEO or CFO or any C-level executive directly. Instead, you'll end up speaking to their personal assistant - the guard and gatekeeper for your source. Like the guards and gatekeepers of old, these people know who passes by, and what goes on. So rather than insist on the C-contact, be nice to the PA and chat to them instead. You may well find that all you need to know comes from them instead.

3) Go underneath
Often, going to the top won't help. If the information you require is sensitive, the people at the top know the sensitivity - including their PAs. They won't talk and you will get nothing. Rather, consider the people who report to them, or who have managers who report to them. Such people may not know the whole picture - but speak to several and you soon will. Each interviewee will feel flattered that you view their knowledge as important - and won't realise that the small bits of information they know, when combined with other small bits, can reveal the secrets the higher-ups would like to keep hidden.

4) Go around the castle
Rather than trying to contact the organisation directly, look for people who are now outside but know what goes on inside. These include ex-employees, obviously. However others may also know information - and be willing to share if asked in the right way. These can include your customers, your competitor's customers, their suppliers, as well as industry consultants, trade association staff and many more similar sources.

Collecting competitive intelligence doesn't always depend on looking for the obvious source. Like attacking castles, often the secret is to find the weaknesses that allow you to gain entrance, gather what you need to know and leave without anybody even noticing your visit.