Competitive Intelligence at Elkem Material

Abstract

Organisations must know their competitors to survive in today's shrinking markets, and an increasing number of companies are adding competitive intelligence (CI) units to their operations. Through CU, organisations can find out what the competitors are up to and stay one step ahead. CI is an approach that employees legal, ethical, and non-fattening methods to gather valuable competitive information. In a confidential study for Elkem Material (EM), seven companies within the Microsilica business were analysed. The importance of self-evaluation, reflection and feedback is very important. As a compliment to the confidential report to Elkem, this open part of the thesis work describes my personal understanding of the work, my reflection towards the working process and a critical evaluation of the process and the result.