Title: Competitive intelligence as a creative tool for the innovation process: an exploratory study in SMEs

Authors: Abdeslam Hassani; Caroline Blais

Addresses: Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, 3351 Bd des Forges, Trois-Rivières, QC G8Z-4M3, Canada ' Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 Bd de l'Université, Sherbrooke, J1K-2R1, Canada

Abstract: Although small and medium enterprises (SMEs) innovate by developing new products and services, these types of innovation have a high failure rate. This could be due to the poor implementation of tools and techniques that help evaluate and select the best ideas and turn them into new products and services. The implementation of competitive intelligence (CI) techniques in the ideation phase of innovation process is a factor that can promote innovation and its success. However, knowledge about these techniques in SMEs is limited. This research attempts to fill this gap through an exploratory study of three SMEs that are successful in products and services innovation. Our findings highlight that the use of a set of CI techniques, like strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis and brainstorm, improves the ideation phase of the innovation process and promotes success of products and services innovation. This study suggests an innovation process model, which includes CI as a set of techniques for generating and selecting ideas, and as an adjustment tool for the development and commercialisation phases.

Keywords: product innovation; service innovation; innovation process; ideation; competitive intelligence; small and medium enterprises; SMEs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEIM.2024.144577

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2024 Vol.28 No.5/6, pp.343 - 364

Received: 17 Jul 2023
Accepted: 23 Jul 2023
Published online: 23 Feb 2025 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article