business intelligence

Examples of business intelligence in the following topics:

• Competitive Intelligence

  • Competitive Intelligence (CI) is a hybrid process of marketing research and strategic analysis that can give companies a competitive advantage.
  • There are many synonyms for competitive intelligence such as business intelligence, market intelligence, and corporate intelligence.
  • The CI field has been growing exponentially as it is becoming a must-have core competency for many businesses.
  • At the core of this concept is the ability to understand the competition's position and predict the likely moves that competing companies will employ based on basic business principles.
  • Primary research – This process involves the use of a human network to access meaningful intelligence.

• Monitoring Competition

  • Companies must monitor competition in order to make intelligent marketing decisions based on how competitors operate.
  • It means basing intelligent marketing decisions on facts about how competitors operate, as well as determining how best to respond.
  • A broad definition of competitive intelligence is the action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors, and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization.
  • Competitive intelligence is an ethical and legal business practice, as opposed to industrial espionage which is illegal.
  • There is a process involved in gathering information, converting it into intelligence and then utilizing this in business decision-making.

• Summary and references

  • "Measuring competitive intelligence effectiveness: Insights from the advertising industry".
  • Competitive Intelligence Review; Volume 12, Issue 4: 25 – 38.
  • "Competitive intelligence revisited: A history, and assessment of its use in marketing".
  • Competitive Intelligence Review, 5, 4: 23-31.
  • Competitive Intelligence Review, 10, 2: 52-6.

• Marketing Orientation

  • A marketing-oriented business starts with the customer, finds out what they want, and then produces it for them.
  • Kohli in the "Journal of Marketing", marketing orientation is the, "The organization-wide generation of market intelligence pertaining to current and future customer needs, dissemination of the intelligence across departments and organization wide responsiveness to it. "
  • Using this customer intelligence, companies could produce products that supported their overall business strategy, competed effectively in an increasingly global and competitive market, and delivered solutions for current and future customer needs.
  • Marketing-oriented companies revolve around internal business processes that gather, synthesize, and package market intelligence into integrated marketing communications programs (i.e., advertising campaign, new product launch, promotional offer, etc.).
  • As stated, the most important focus in a market-orientated business is the customer.

• Controversies in Intelligence and Standardized Testing

  • Intelligence tests and standardized tests are widely used throughout many different fields (psychology, education, business, etc.) because of their ability to assess and predict performance.
  • Intelligence tests (such as IQ tests) have always been controversial; critics claim that they measure factors other than intelligence.
  • Psychometricians have sought to make intelligence tests more culture fair and valid over the years, and to make sure that they measure g, or the "general intelligence factor" thought to underly all intelligence.
  • Again, even if intelligence scores correlate with job success, this does not mean that people with high intelligence will always be successful at work.
  • They concluded that the SAT is primarily a test of g or general intelligence.

• Introduction

  • Chances are competition for your firm's product is already well established.Other firms can be in direct competition with you when they offer a similar product and target the same customers.They can be indirectly competing with you by offering a similar product or service, but targeting a different demographic.Competition can come from overseas.Competition can come from another firm in the same city.Competitors are all around you whether you choose to be aware of it or not.Recognizing and dealing with competition is necessary to your business success.
  • What every firm is competing for are buyers or customers.Customers are the final evaluator of your product.If they prefer your product above those of competitors, you will receive their business and the sales which will keep you in business.Even a great business idea will fail unless it attracts buyers.

• Cultural Intelligence

  • Cultural intelligence is the ability to display intercultural competence within a given group through adaptability and knowledge.
  • An interesting perspective on cultural intelligence is well represented in the intercultural-competence diagram, which highlights the way that each segment of cultural knowledge can create synergy when applied to the whole of cultural intelligence, where overlapping generates the highest potential CQ.
  • Hofstede's theory was designed in the 1960s and 1970s, and has remained a relevant perspective in international business, international politics, and cross-cultural psychology.
  • Long-term orientation:Perhaps most critical of all to businesses is the concept of a longer- or shorter-term focus, particularly as it pertains to objectives.
  • Understanding linguistics, cultural norms, and varying values will allow for higher localization and efficiency within global businesses.

• Expert Systems

  • Knowledge based systems are artificial intelligent tools working in a narrow domain to provide intelligent decisions with justification.
  • The basic advantages offered by such a system are documentation of knowledge, intelligent decision support, self learning, reasoning and explanation.
  • Knowledge-based systems are systems based on the methods and techniques of artificial Intelligence.
  • Expert systems (ES) have been the tools and techniques perfected by artificial intelligence (AI) researchers to deduce decision influences based on the codification of knowledge and applying rules, such as if-then statements.

• The Bureaucracy

  • Prominent among them are the State Department, the Defense Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
  • The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an independent civilian intelligence agency of the U.S. government.
  • It is an executive agency that reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence with responsibility for providing national security intelligence assessments to senior U.S. policymakers.
  • Intelligence-gathering, a core function of the agency, is performed by non-military commissioned civilian intelligence agents, many of whom are trained to avoid tactical situations.
  • Compare and contrast the roles of the State Department, the Defense Department, and the Central Intelligence Agency in shaping U.S. foreign policy.

• Defining Intelligence

  • Over the last century or so, intelligence has been defined in many different ways.
  • The current American Psychological Association definition of intelligence involves a three-level hierarchy of intelligence factors, with g at its apex.
  • Cattell proposed two types of intelligence rather than a single general intelligence.
  • In 1983, Howard Gardner published a book on multiple intelligence that breaks intelligence down into at least eight different modalities: logical, linguistic, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, naturalist, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligences.
  • A few years later, Robert Sternberg proposed the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, which proposes three fundamental types of cognitive ability: analytic intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence.