Intelligence Software

There are a number of software packages that will automate the CI process, but none replaces the human intuition of the CI practitioner. In particular, the analysis process is specific to the application - "horses for courses" so to speak. Before installing any of these systems, be sure you have a process in place. A good way to start is to use a shared spreadsheet to organise your data.

Competitive Intelligence Spider http://ai.bpa.arizona.edu/index.html
The CI Spider starts from the URLs a user specifies and follows all the possible links to search for particular keywords that have been entered, or can just collect all the web pages if no keywords are entered. After collecting the required number of web pages, further analysis will be performed. Noun phrases will be extracted from them, which allows the user to know what key concepts are related to the web sites and keywords specified. The concepts can also be visualized in a 2-D map, which categorizes the web pages by collecting them into regions, each of which represents a concept. All these functionalities allow the user automatically to collect information more effectively and represent it in a more meaningful way. CI Spider also allows valuable search sessions to be saved. Free download

Connect http://www.lowell.spots.ab.ca/CI/article/cookbook.html
This is a software package built by Shell International E&P to organise and distribute competitive intelligence via an intranet or email.

Karnak Atlanta-based VedaSource LLC unveiled this Internet search service early 1999. This is a service that searches the internet directly, and subsequently maintains a watch on the sites of interest for any changes that occur while the user is off-line. It is a free service for a single search profile, but multiple profiles may be obtained for what seems to be a reasonable monthly fee. Can take weeks to get all the relevant hits.

Knowledge Works http://www.cipher-sys.com/
This works as file cabinet to store all sorts of information about competitors. Inside the file cabinet are automation features to categorize, index, search, alert, monitor, and subscribe to information for delivery via e-mail, as a portal, or a private intranet site. Knowledge.Works provides facilities to summarize text, to publish to the corporate intranet or portal, and to find, analyze, visualize and navigate through competitive information. Scored high in the "Primary Source Collection" category of the review of intelligence software - Competitive Inteklligence Magazine March-April 2001.

Plumtree Corporate Portal http://www.plumtree.com/
This is a software package that is intended to cover the entire CI process - enter, organise, distribute and anlyse competitive information. Scored high in the "Published Information" category of the review of intelligence software - Competitive Intelligence Magazine March-April 2001.

Sitescape http://www.sitescape.com/
Sitescape used to be called AltaVista when originally developed by Digital. SiteScape's collaboration software and services provide an effective and easy way to communicate, share resources, and collaborate across departments, organizations or business networks. SiteScape has a worldwide customer base of 1500 companies clustered in a wide variety of industries, including high tech, manufacturing, automotive, trade associations, telecommunications, education, construction, legal, and government.

Strategy http://www.strategy-software.com/
The company describes Strategy as an off-the-shelf Competitor Information Management System. STRATEGY! is a database specifically designed to hold valuable information about competitors and other forces in the competitive environment. It scored second in the analysis category (3/15), of the Fuld review in CI Magazine, March-April 2001.

TextAnalyst http://www.megaputer.com/products/ta/index.php3
TextAnalyst is a tool to summarize, efficiently navigate, and cluster documents in a textbase. TextAnalyst can perform semantic information retrieval or focus text exploration around a certain subject.

Timeline http://www.wisdombuilder.com/prTimeLine.htm
Timeline is a utility that allows you to place events in chronological order, in order to see connections between events.

Wincite http://www.wincite.com/
The software works as a repository of competitive data that includes analysis on a company’s competitors, products, markets and competitive intelligence projects that are “works in progress.” In addition to organization, Wincite also provides dissemination and presentation of business intelligence.

Wisdombuilder http://www.wisdombuilder.com/home.htm
Wisdom Builder Desktop focuses on knowledge management and analysis within a case or project environment. It scored the highest in the analysis category (4/15 though!) and in the Report category, of the Fuld review in CI Magazine, March-April 2001)

According to the manufacturers, its main objectives include:
1) Enabling the knowledge worker to spend more time on analysis and less time on information management;
2) Assisting the knowledge worker in building and analyzing obscure or unknown relationships; and,
3) Improving the overall quality of the knowledge worker's product.

This product scored top in a review of CI software (Competitive Intelligence Magazine March-April 2001)