Credit: Unsplash
Part of personal and professional development is the consumption of new information. No matter if you’re just going through university, perhaps doing your masters, or reading for your own betterment, there are so many amazing resources out there: frankly, it’s hard to keep up.
Recently, we’ve been getting questions for those that are interested in strategy, intelligence, and insights: “What should I be reading?”
So, to help, we’ve gone out to our expert communities and networks, to come up with a short list of must-reads to help you develop your skills. Check out the list below!
Competitive Intelligence Advantage: How to Minimize Risk, Avoid Surprises, and Grow Your Business in a Changing World
This book, from Seena Sharp, who set up one of the first competitive intelligence companies in the world, provides “a practical introduction to the necessity of competitive intelligence for smarter business decisions.” The introduction on Amazon also reinforces we often tell clients: “ If you are a senior level executive or operate a business and you aren't tapping the power of CI to improve your decision making, you are missing a potent advantage.”
The Handbook of Market Intelligence: Understand, Compete and Grow in Global Markets
Anyone these days understands the importance of the “rules of the game” when it comes to competing in global markets. This book provides a one stop shop, step-by-step roadmap for establishing, conducting and further developing corporate intelligence programs within an organisation and then shows how organisations can turn market data into actionable insights.
Competitive Intelligence
This book, by Larry Kahaner, dives into how CI units operate at companies like Motorola, Nutrasweet, AT&T, Corning, Procter & Gamble and Marion-Merrell Dow. The book, notably, referred to as the “The smart snooper's bible”, is noted by some reviewers on Amazon as a good introduction to the concepts of Competitive Intelligence, but, if you’re more mature, your time may be better spent elsewhere.
Sources:
Amazon
Business and Competitive Analysis: Effective Application of New and Classic Methods (2nd Edition)
If you’re looking to get a comprehensive dive in this realm, this 624-page monster, written by two great people that I have a lot of respect for, Babette Bensoussan and Craig Fleisher, is described as “this generation’s definitive guide to business and competitive analysis.” The ratings seem to speak for themselves. You can see the full index and read Chapter 1 here from Pearson.
Sources:
Amazon
Thriftbooks
Finally, on the topic, Ted Galpin shared a number of resources that relate specifically to business strategy on Strategic Science.
Wrapping up
Did we miss any books? Any must-reads you’ve read lately? We’d love to hear your recommendations. Email us your thoughts! Also, if you like this type of content, be sure to join our monthly newsletter that focuses on strategy, intelligence and insights.
Be strategic: Tomorrow is coming soon. Now is a great time to get prepared.