21843 Managing Intelligence for Global Business

Subject level: Postgraduate

Handbook description

Gaining and maintaining a competitive advantage in business and government often relies on keeping fully informed about potential developments likely to affect the future of an organisation's products and its markets both within Australia and internationally. The establishment and maintenance of a strategically designed, competitive intelligence system within an organisation is one way of keeping up-to-date about opportunities and threats. However, competitive intelligence involves considerations that are far broader than just maintaining details of market or industry analysis. Knowledge of the country context such as barriers to entry, the end for strategic alliances, legislative frameworks, labour market structures, and the stability of political systems provide some key focus points for examining the global environment.

Subject objectives/outcomes

On successful completion of this subject students should be able to:

1. Identify and articulate the ways in which improved, detailed competitive intelligence might contribute to better results for an organisation within the context of the global business environment.
2. Identify, collect, analyse and synthesise the kind of intelligence, as core corporate knowledge, that organisations require in the twenty first century and need to manage for global business.
3. Demonstrate knowledge of the critical trends and issues related to managing intelligence in a complex global business environment.

Contribution to graduate profile

Many organisations today have an interest in expanding their business in a more global way and are constantly required to assess various opportunities for overseas investment from a global, country, local and market perspective. Managers of such businesses also need to have an in-depth understanding of the critical factors, events and issues, which might impact upon their global business decisions. This advanced subject, while initially similar in content to the subject 21784 – Global Business Competitive Intelligence provides students with significant work experience with a basis for gaining knowledge, competencies and values in relation to the discipline and practice of competitive intelligence gathering, analysis and synthesis in a global business context. It also examines approaches for establishing an organisational competitive intelligence system. The subject, further, examines in some detail the kind of intelligence that might be needed to direct difficult business decisions, including considerations such as the impact of trade regionalisation, the regulation of global financial markets, international relations, 'super' power dominance, military and ethnically derived conflicts, new and old economies and the impact of advanced technologies.

Teaching and learning strategies

Lectures, discussion groups, case studies and intelligence gathering assignments will be used to cover the major issues relating to this subject. Lecture and other teaching material and subject information will be available at UTS Online. In addition the lecturer will be available for individual consultation face-to-face or online throughout the semester. This subject can also be offered as an individual learning subject.

Content

• Theories and concepts of competitive intelligence for global business.
• Commencing an intelligence search.
• Trends, events and issues in globalisation and the potential impact on global business.
• Country analysis.
• Market/industry analysis.
• Country political risk and strategic decisions.
• International relations, global industries, other factors and the impact on business.
• Developing and managing a competitive intelligence system in a global business context.
• Contemporary issues in competitive intelligence systems - case studies.
• Contemporary issues in global business - case studies.

Assessment

Recommended text(s)

Cook, M. and Cook, C. 2000. Competitive Intelligence. Kogan Page. London

Competitive Intelligence Review – electronic copies of this journal are available through the UTS Library – Wiley Interscience Database.

Indicative references

Fuld, L M. 1995. The New Competitor Intelligence, John Wiley and Sons, New York.

Hulnick, A. 2002. Risky business. Harvard International Review Fall Vol 24, Issue 3 68-72.

Kahaner, L. 1996.Competitive Intelligence. Simon and Schuster, New York .

Kahaner, L. 1998.Competitive Intelligence: How to Gather, Analyse, and Use Information to Move Your Business to the Top. Touchstone Books, New York.

Kotler, P., Jatusripitak, S., and Maesincee, S. 1997. The Marketing of Nations. The Free Press. New York.

MacDonald, S. 2002. Globalization and Risk: A Contingent Response for Democratic Governance.

Administrative Theory and Praxis. Vol 24. Number 1, March. 31-54.

Mitroff, I. 2002. Crisis learning: The lessons of failure. The Futurist. Vol 36. Issue 5. Start page 19.

Pauchant, T. and Mitroff, I. 2002. Learning to cope with complexity. The Futurist. Volume 36, Issue 3. May/June. 68-69.

Porter, M. 1990.1999. The Competitive Advantage of Nations. Macmillan. London.

Stiglitz, J. 2001. Failure of the Fund: Rethinking the IMF response. Harvard International Review, Summer. Vol. 23. Issue 2. 14-18

Stiglitz, J. 2002. Globalism and the World's Poor. The American Prospect. Princeton. Winter. A16-A21.

Weiss, L. 1998. The Myth of the Powerless State. Polity Press. Cambridge, UK.