Abstract

Many organisations have either purchased or are considering the purchase of E.R.P. However, these systems have historically looked inwards to help organisations with their internal systems. In reality the real benefit of these type of systems will be where they interface with the firms’ external business environment – in essence ERP II. To date, several organisations have paid hundreds of millions of pounds for their business intelligence systems. However, it is argued that it is only by taking advantage of modules such as competitor intelligence(CI) where they can in fact realise true benefits from their adoption. This paper focuses on the critical importance of CI for organisations as part of their overall business intelligence(BI) strategy. Purchasing BI software is only stage one. Even though to make better decisions faster, business executives and managers need relevant and useful facts at their ‘finger-tips’ there is often a large gap between the information that decision-makers require and the volumes of data that their businesses collect in their day-to-day business transactions. It will only be those firms that put in place effective and coherent systems, such as CI, that will prosper in today’s turbulent business environment.

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