A recent SCIP blog discussion motivated me to challenge the current state of frustration to come up with a generic definition of the Competitive Intelligence profession.

While I agree with some of the statements made at the discussion within the SCIP blog I want to add my two cents and hopefully kick off some additional contributions and thoughts by markintell members. Here ist my comment to the SCIP blog:

“Besides the mentioned necessary definition of CI as a standard business discipline for general guidance and positioning (where some of the brilliant academic work can and should be taken in account) I believe that practical CI complicates the effort to describe CI in more detail.

Depending on business model, place of origin of initial CI efforts and educational state of management as well as resources available the practical and real world setup and impact of CI varies greatly. Any CI function or activity diverts from theory almost instantly as soon as individuals and organizations are involved who never had and never will have any exposure to the great academic ground work many CI practitioners will base their work on.

In order not to create an artificial divide between theory and reality any attempt to generally describe and position CI as a business discipline and career will undoubtedly have to consider both: the academic preparation and the real world implementation. SCIP’s configuration as a construct of great minds from all walks of life including academic, business and commercial stakeholders would be ideally positioned to probe such definitions based on member request and their input. Firstly though, the question would have to be asked and answered as to what and how could this answer support the CI community.

Once it is understood what decisions are to be supported by the answer, SCIP could attempt to produce a definition in response to above question - much like any CI activity should support the decision making process of any manager requesting and consuming intelligence.”