Project Planning: Formulation and Definition of Information Needs (Definition of Critical Intelligence Questions and Critical Intelligence Topics). Collection of information about primary and secondary sources. Primary sources: industry experts, (former) employees of the competitor, customers, suppliers, dealers, trade fairs, congresses. Secondary sources: annual reports, industry journals, newspapers, Internet, patents, subject databases
Processing: translation (in foreign-language sources), evaluation, structuring (for example in tables or in a product comparison matrix), interpretation and electronic storage of the information obtained.
Interpretation: Analysis of the knowledge gained, benchmarking, SWOT analysis (strength-weakness analysis), competitor profiling, industry structure analysis, simulation models.
Dissemination of the results: handing over to the decision-maker, possibly further information needs with renewed project planning.
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