Competitive Intelligence (CI) for
economic & business development
Competitive intelligence has become a mainstay of business and government decision-making. Community leaders, business owners and investors want the facts that economic analysis can deliver to inform their decisions and to inform and influence the decisions of others. In local economic development, gathering information on competitiveness is essential for targeting scarce resources to sectors with real growth potential. Secondly, it provides answers to many key development questions, i.e. how to qualify opportunities and determine what will help them go further faster. When just 5% of local companies will create the majority of new jobs in your community in the next five years¹, it pays to target expansion programs to firms that are potential high-flyers.
Download: Competitive Intelligence in Economic Development
Download: Competitive Intelligence Bio: Dr. Philip McCready ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CASE STUDY: Competitive intelligence support for Small Business
Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, two time Shingo Prize winner and president of Quality Methods International, brought in Innovation Economics to research into potential solutions to protect a valuable body of management consulting IP in PowerPoint® format. The company required a solution with flexible capability to control and license material to training organizations in the U.S. and worldwide to support the creation of the Visual-Lean Institute (VLI). 
QMI needed a solution to manage viewing rights for a complete set of course material for certified training companies using a unique set of material developed over 25 years. The solution needed two features (i) to completely prevent all form of replication becuase of the unique content, images and organizational tools in the company's training materials, and (ii) to allow the author to remotely control and update use rights on any MS Windows based computer used anywhere. Not finding a ready "off-the-shelf" solution, Innovation Economics was commissioned to work with software developers to create one. The resulting software was a PPT file encryption and digital rights management solution. The solution has been warmly received by partner companies and trainers alike, as a means to protect local and national markets from competitors and IP dilution. The solution provided VLI a secure basis to sell their courses and collect licensing revenue on an ongoing basis from participating partner training providers.
"The solution gave us the peace of mind to do something we could never before do; give away our materials to other consultants. Intellectual property is the core of any consultancy.
The new system made it possible
for us to set up the Visual-Lean
Institute and begin licensing and
certifying others to use our materials"
Dan Vetter
Executive Director
Visual-Lean® Institute www.VLinstitute.com