Competitive intelligence through UK eyes

Competitive Intelligence in the United Kingdom is steadily growing, yet the extent to which the country’s practitioners either understand or appreciate the full extent to which CI can improve their strategic decision making and business performance is debatable. To the uninitiated, CI in the UK is, at best, mistaken for market research, and at worst, referred to as spying. In this article, we present the UK situation, which has been determined through empirical research with practitioners, industry specialists, and consultants. Training course attendance alone confirms that there are at least 16,500 interested managers in the country. A conservative estimate based on the notion that each manager who has received formal training in CI, has told at least one other member in their workplace would double that figure to 33,000. The overwhelming conclusion is that CI is not only present in the UK but it is a vibrant, creative, exciting, and growing community.