By definition, competitive intelligence assembles actionable information from diverse published and unpublished sources, collected efficiently and ethically. Ideally, a business successfully employs competitive intelligence by cultivating a detailed enough portrait of the marketplace so it may anticipate and respond to challenges and problems before they arise. Competitive intelligence transcends the simple cliché "know your enemy."

Companies essentially face three major challenges: internationalization, innovation, and intelligence analysis. To address these challenges, companies must introduce and incorporate economic and competitive intelligence into their organizational structures. Access to reliable information and the ability to analyze it are increasingly important factors in avoiding impulsive decisions with a high level of uncertainty.

Intelligence can be categorized according to who gathers it. When gathered by public services, it is referred to as “economic intelligence,” but when gathered by companies, it is called “competitive intelligence.” Competitive intelligence is a legal business practice, as opposed to industrial espionage, which is illegal.

Depends on the type of the product and complexity. Creating an internal Competitive Intelligence structure involves costs that can reach hundreds of thousands of EUR/USD per year for one or two specialists.