Competitive Intelligence is the process of analysing and interpreting circumstances for the strategic benefit of the company or organisation.
Results are communicated to decision makers in concise, relevant reports. Information about the financial, cultural, political, social, legal and technological reality of the ambit and the forces that affect it is collected from external data sources and processed (as opposed to BI, Business Intelligence, which is based on internal data), in order to obtain markers of future changes.
Competitive Intelligence is a forecasting tool to pick up signs that, as weak as they may be, provide a realistic view of the environment, both for security today and in anticipation of the future from a global perspective.