Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence: The Online and Offline Secrets of Top CI Researchers

This book makes the case for having a CI function within a company very well. It also outlines major CI approaches used and shows how CI is being used in different markets by a broad range of practitioners. The interviews are very enlightening, and many of the techniques can be used by other disciplines. My interest is using CI methods and processes to keep up to date with technology risks and opportunities. This book helps. The accounts of the interviews are great. The one thing that was very irritating about this book: to say that "intelligence operations" are new to companies. CI may be a new discipline, but using intelligence methods in business is not new (J P Morgan and the other industrial magnates of his time would be turning in their graves! They used intelligence operations in the markets that would make the CIA blush). Within the US, industrial espionage probably has a longer history than military intelligence. The OSS, forerunner of the CIA was not formed until world war two. The secret service dates from the 1860's. During the civil war the Federal Government had to use Pinkerton's ...... This is a minor detraction from a great book that is very useful.