Hug a Librarian

Anyone who has been practicing competitive intelligence for the past several years cannot have helped but notice the increasing role information professionals are playing in the CI discipline. Consider:

• Membership in the Special Libraries Association CI division stands at over 700, up more than 25 percent in just two years. The Association reports that the CI division has been among the fastest growing divisions for the past several years.

• Information professionals are becoming more experienced in CI. More than a quarter of SLA CI Division members have been involved with CI for over 10 years.

• And, nearly half of the CI Division's members report dedicating more than half of their time to CI.

It's hard to imagine a successful CI function that is not accompanied by a solid information services function, either as an embedded part of the CI program or as an internal service provider to the CI function within the larger organization. Whereas information professionals were once limited to providing background research to more experienced CI human-source researchers and analysts, today's information professionals increasingly are involved in conducting intelligence analysis and preparing intelligence assessments for their organizations.

Why? Just as the lines between market research and competitive intelligence are becoming increasingly blurred, so to are the boundaries between what was once "the corporate library" and any organization's need for a unified and integrated view of its external environment. To be sure, a successful CI function must rely on more than just published-source information, and requires a solid human-source information network. Still, information professionals today have the expertise to tap a wealth of information sources to collect information that not long ago was the sole purview of primary source researchers, or that was not available quickly and inexpensively on the Internet. As a result, information professionals are now able to identify trends, define future outcomes, and determine competitive implications -- the very lifeblood of top-notch intelligence analysis.