Thanks for the call out!

Another strong reason to have a formal CI function is that this info usually lives in silos in different parts of the company – product management, research, sales, marketing and others – who are not aware and/or don’t share this knowledge. Having a common knowledge pool can be very empowering to all functions.

I like your 4th point the best, and love the quote that Seena Sharp had in her book, “Competitive Intelligence Advantage,” from Will Rogers, “it ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Likewise, when examining competitors, consider “what do they know that you don’t?” to uncover new markets, applications and customer niches.

Seena’s book goes into a lot of reasons to do CI, too many to enumerate here since it’s 269 pages of material, a lot around getting people to both understand and take advantage of what can be gained by competitive intelligence to support key strategic decisions.

Check out Seena’s book at http://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Competitive-Intelligence-Seena-Sharp/dp/0470293179/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273939418&sr=1-1.