Publication Date

1967

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Green, Gerald G.||Sims, Clarence A.

Degree Name

M.S. (Master of Science)

Legacy Department

Department of Management

LCSH

Business intelligence; Chemical industry--Management

Abstract

Since World War II, competitive intelligence and trade relations have increased in significance in the industrial chemical industry. The increase in these practices may be attributed to the fact that supply started to reach demand in the industry during this period and homogeneous products were prevalent in the industry. As a result of this situation, competitive intelligence departments and trade relations departments were set up to a limited degree. It was assumed in this study that the operations of a competitive intelligence department and a trade relations department were similar enough to incorporate these two departments into one department which would be more efficient than the two separate departments. It was also assumed that a new intelligence, correlation, the customer-supplier-competitor correlation, would be produced by combining the operations of competitive intelligence and trade relations into one department. The department would be called a commercial intelligence department. Therefore, the problem of this investigation was to determine the feasibility of establishing a commercial intelligence department in an Industrial chemical firm. The methods and techniques for gathering, processing, and disseminating competitive intelligence and trade relations' information were investigated and analyzed. Also, the ethical and legal aspects of these operations were looked into. It was found that a competitive intelligence department and a trade relations department used very similar methods and techniques for gathering and processing intelligence, but they varied in the manner in which they disseminated their information. It was also found that the four caption, cross-indexed filing system, which can be used for processing both competitive intelligence and trade relations information, produces a customer-supplier-competitor correlation at no added cost. Since the similarities of a competitive intelligence department and a trade relations department greatly outweighed the differences, and a considerable amount of duplicate work would be eliminated if the two departments were merged into one, it was concluded that a commercial intelligence department would not only be feasible but also advantageous to an Industrial chemical firm. From the information gathered and analyzed in this study, a framework was set up for establishing a commercial intelligence department. Recommendations were made with regard to the position of such a department in an industrial chemical organization, the personnel to staff the department, the duties and responsibilities of the department, the cost of such a department, and the ethical and legal guidelines for such a department.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references.

Extent

ix, 74 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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