M.Comm. / South Africa as a country continues to rank low in the world of competitiveness. The research done for this dissertation focused on the need for South African organisations to perceive Competitive Intelligence (CI) as one of the most important tools to improve their competitiveness through a systematic, practical approach to make the CI cycle worth while, especially through skills development. This study intends to identify the skills CI professionals in South Africa need in order to conduct the CI process in organisations effectively, thereby improving the country’s competitive position. However, the difficulty of this task lies with organisations in general not acknowledging the necessity of CI in the workplace. Only a limited number of organisations recognise the importance of such a unit. A survey was therefore conducted, by questionnaire, among organisations with existing CI units in which the respondents had to identify the skills they deemed necessary for the CI professional to run the CI process effectively. Findings suggested that the majority of respondents were 40 years and older, in the top structure of larger organisations and had been using CI for longer than five years. The overwhelming result is thus that there are skills inequalities between what skills respondents view as crucial and those that rated highest in their self-evaluation. Skills identified as most important include, among others, networking and research skills analytical abilities. The research also indicated that where CI had been established in certain organisations for at least five years, it did not reflect positively overall on South Africa’s current competitive situation. However, where there is a systematic CI approach, problem-solving is easier to address and negatives could be turned around. With this in mind and a proper “buy-in” into skills development, it will have a very positive outcome for all the organisations that wish to improve their competitiveness.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:6960 |
| Date | 09 November 2010 |
| Creators | Strauss, Alida Cornelia |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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