The field of competitive intelligence (CI) as a distinct business discipline emerged in the 1980s with the publication of Leonard Fuld’s Competitor Intelligence: How to Get it, How to Use it (Wiley, 1985). The first organizational model for competitive intelligence was published by Ben Gilad and Tamar Gilad, The Business Intelligence System (AMACOM, 1988). In the decade following the publication of this book, CI functions appeared in large numbers of Fortune 500 firms in the United States.

    Today, competitive intelligence is an established, institutionalized function in the vast majority of large firms in the U.S. and Western Europe. And although Asian firms are generally lagging behind Western companies in formalizing their CI activities, South Korean firms have been known to create some advanced CI capabilities.

    Yet competitive intelligence as an activity is one of the oldest business functions. Records show that Phoenician traders gathered commercial intelligence while expanding their maritime empire in 1500 B.C. The underlying force behind formalizing and institutionalizing this process in the 20th Century has been globalization. Facing competitive pressures from new sources and the faster diffusion of both innovation and imitation, managers of private enterprises sought better support for their ability to compete effectively. Thus was born the demand for a formal CI process.