At the “German Competitive Intelligence Forum,” professionals known as competitive analysts gather to engage in legal economic intelligence instead of traditional espionage. One anecdote shared by Dietmar Pfaff highlights the creative strategies businesses employ, as he capitalized on rental car shortages at Frankfurt Airport. With increasing concerns about data theft and sabotage, the forum emphasizes the transition to employing artificial intelligence for analyzing markets and improving production processes, allowing companies to make better-informed decisions for future successes.
At the ‘German Competitive Intelligence Forum,’ modern business analysts come together. They refer to themselves as competitive intelligence specialists and operate using legal methods.
Dietmar Pfaff, while still a student, worked at a car rental company at Frankfurt Airport. One day, a crowd of business people arrived for a trade fair. The aspiring business administrator noticed that more and more customers were being turned away at competing rental counters. Curious, he went to the parking garage and counted the available rental cars, realizing that the inventory was depleting quickly.
Pfaff made calls to classmates and had them bring cars from rental stations in Hanau, Gießen, Wiesbaden, and Darmstadt—an incredible opportunity for the rental company that remained the only supplier. Recently, Pfaff, now a lecturer at a technical university in Cologne, shared this story at the German annual conference of competitive intelligence specialists in Frankfurt as a simple example of clever business analysis.
Seventy percent of companies in Germany feel threatened by data theft, industrial espionage, and sabotage.
Discussion on ‘Intelligence’
The individuals attending the ‘German Competitive Intelligence Forum’ would never refer to their work as industrial espionage. Instead, they focus on analysis and information gathering, insisting on using only legal methods. Espionage, in contrast, is illegal. The often unassuming participants at the conference do not appear to be individuals who would scale fences or manipulate company employees for information. About sixty men and women gathered, either monitoring competition and markets in large companies or performing intelligence tasks for client firms.
In the past, business spies would commonly stand outside factory gates, counting trucks, observing operations at trade shows, or taking apart competitor products. While hands-on observation is still vital for quick assessments—like gauging car rental availability at airports—the advent of the internet has revolutionized this work. Thirty years ago, companies suddenly had access to vast amounts of data in usable formats. The competitive intelligence conference highlighted that the field is on the cusp of a new transformation due to Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Investigations Using Artificial Intelligence
Corma, located in Düsseldorf, operates as an online detective agency. Its managing director, Jörn Weber, leverages AI to sift through business reports and hard-to-read HTML documents for individual research and the development of investigative plans.
“Since I started working with AI, I’ve been reading a lot more,” Weber notes. “You have more time for quality.” He explains that interacting with AI requires a simple approach, akin to talking to a seven-year-old. This interaction yields a mix of a very competent intern and a capable assistant. One clear distinction, Weber reports, is that “AI doesn’t argue back when you say: ‘Do that again!’ Sometimes, it even apologizes.”
Jochen Spuck from Econsight shares that he used to spend days poring over tedious patent documents: “I don’t do that anymore. I don’t want to.” His company, Econsight in Basel, has created a database containing 150 million patent documents. Now, AI performs the searches. For instance, if a company is scouting for potential acquisition targets, it can request a dossier about the industry. Companies with the highest quality patents are filtered and described. “They have a better chance of winning in the future,” Spuck says.
Internal Benefits
Through market and competitive analysis, companies can also enhance their internal production processes. “How do I evaluate whether a new product will succeed or fail?” questions Yvon-Laurent Lusseault from Bosch. Often, product developers rely solely on data that reinforces their existing beliefs.
Those using internal Artificial Intelligence will be prompted to consider data on customer demand, competition, feasibility, and profitability, leading to the creation of superior products. “We must allow the data to tell their story,” Lusseault emphasizes.