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The CI also contemplates all those tactical activities
that participate in the definition of new prices and product
promotions, the imputation of credit and risk on the clients,
reverted engineering, benchmarking, the participation in
trade shows and conferences, etc. Furthermore, the CI can
be applied to small businesses with creative and simple
formulas. The benefits associated with the implimentation
of a CI program can be classified into two groups:
1. To reduce the risk of the possible failure of a project,
for example: the development of a new product, an acquisition,
an alliance or a fusion, or the penetration into a new country.
2, To improve the competitive position of the company against
its competition.
Also, a CI program can offer additional benefits like the
Protection of information.
The management of competitive intelligence in large and
medium-size companies can be done in very different ways
(centralized or decentralized, global or specialized departmentally,
continuous or precise, formal or informal) (see final figure)
and depends on its culture and sector. Normally, to be able
to reap the maximum benefits and obtain the participation
of all the organization in the program of the CI, it must
be assumed that the company that proposes the development
of the CI activities follows the program. The development
of the program will be made through an augmented growth
and divided into different phases which will give origin
to a CI unit. In this sense, most of the Spanish companies,
like most of the European companies, have concentrated programs
of CI in activities specialized and pertinent to a single
functional area like commercial, technological or economic/financial.
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