Competitive Intelligence & Knowledge Management

---

A process for mastering strategic information, economic intelligence is acknowledged as a major factor in the development of a company’s performance and competitiveness. Today, EI involves all the players in the economic chain, SMEs as well as large corporations, but also the Government, territorial collectivities and institutions. The KM is closely related to the process of CI in the companies and makes it possible to capitalize and create new knowledges. 

Founder 

Alice Guilhon, Director of CERAM, Ph.D in Management Sciences, HDR (“Habilitée à diriger des Recherches”), Vice-President of the CI Group of the INHES (“Institut National des Hautes Etudes de Sécurité”), Member of the training committee with Alain Juillet, HRIE (“Haut Responsable en Intelligence Economique”), former auditor for the NHES and IHEDN (“Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale”).

The role of Competitive Intelligence (CI) for today's businesses

A practice of espionage originating in military strategy and very quickly adopted by the new "spies" of the industrial world, the CI approach has longtime been a must for business leaders. Knowledge henceforth the property of ex-military and police, security specialists for industrial intellectual property and information, this approach has bit by bit expanded and enlarged.

Competitive Intelligence has become a necessary strategic practice that has largely outgrown mere procedure. CI is not only the business of each and every organization, it is also a transversal operation carried out by men and women exploiting the added value produced. It has gradually imposed itself as a veritable process for the structure and management of information and knowledge, providing the framework for the organization of these within the company and based on collective projects. For companies, CI has the strategic mission of the collection, treatment and diffusion of information for knowledge creation & Innovation links with CI. The process allows for an enhancement of reactivity, and creates real value through the organization of project teams, the analysis of the competition, the amelioration of internal communication, the establishment of information networks, and, finally, by bringing together different units. But CI is much more than a group of methods and practices: it is managerial approach, and above all a organizational process for companies. It is now also a real research discipline, with frontiers ranging from economics, management and information science.

Knowledge Management (KM), an emerging fundamental practice

Knowledge Management is a vast and complex domain. Much more than a philosophy or a simple practice, it is a veritable mode of organizational management, developed through different approaches by its pioneers (Nonaka, Spender, Boisot, Prusak, Snowden, Davenport, Brown, etc.). However, over the last decade, the practice of KM in companies has mainly been driven by consultants, who have developed tools and techniques for the sharing of information, without taking into account a real reflection on the organization or on the value created through KM.

It is evident that by participating in research through close contact with researchers in the KM domains, companies have everything to gain. KM is the culmination of a logical strategic evolution from companies who, well aware of the risks of competition and positioning, ensure their future success through the organizational modes and management of knowledge. From now on, growth and sustainability rely on the capacity of companies to develop projects while capitalizing on existing knowledge and the organization of the knowledge creation..

Activities

Specialisations

• Organisation of CI and KM

• Introduction of tools

• Knowledge management

• Approach to “business oriented” economic intelligence

• Information analysis, monitoring and cartography of players.