The highly competitive global economy that companies find themselves in, requires that they employ any tactic that is available to give them an advantage over their competition. Using a well formulated competitive intelligence (CI) process, companies can gain the necessary information that they require to make swot reports educated decisions that will improve their market share and keep them one step ahead. The information that is collected is only as good as it can be used, and CI analysts help to analyze and compile the data, from multiple sources, into a report that management can effectively use.
Competitive intelligence with a scientific flavor
While most of the CI gathering is usually done as a part of another division, the companies that fully embrace the CI analyst position and realize the potential benefit can reap the maximum benefits. Proper data collection and analysis can provide your organization with trends to predict future performance, make direct comparisons, and then plot the overall impact that this has on market share, innovation, and increasing profits. The more efficiently and rigorously the information can be collected and analyzed, the better the decision making process will be. Using a scientifically trained researcher and a solid CI process you can make the most out of every piece of data that you come across.
PhD scientists are useful as CI Analysts
They often aren’t aware, but by the time that most PhD scientists graduate, they have developed a skillset of data collection and analysis that can be extremely beneficial in the competitive intelligence realm. Their skills can be immediately utilized as they are already used to sifting and scanning through hundreds of peer-reviewed journals, scouring databases, and leveraging the internet to help gain answers to the questions that they are searching for. This skillset is highly valuable and top companies are quickly finding that investing in PhD scientists is helping their bottom line. As an added benefit they are able to work within deadline, with limited resources, and are able to adapt quickly, which are all qualities that can increase not only the competitive intelligence department but the company as a whole.