Coloum : On the shelves

Competitive Intelligence : Piranti Strategis Memenangkan persaingan Global (Competitive Intelligence: Strategic Instrument To Win Global Competition), Taryanto, et al., Multi Utama Indojasa, 2003, 106 pp

Rarely has there been a book that deals with intelligence operations in Indonesia. This book therefore earns a special space on the shelf in view of the great difficulty in finding publications on competitive intelligence here. It is the original work of four writers daily engaged in this field rather than a product of translation

Competitive Intelligence is often seen as something new and dreadful, a dark and dismal world with practices of bribery, industrial espionage, information theft, and so fourth. The negative image originates in the world intelligence itself, which has various definitions and is widely interpreted. Each nation defines intelligence in terms of the ethical standars it applies.

The first few chapters of this book explain how one should regard intelligence, especially competitive intelligence. By quoting the views of experts on this subject, Jim Underwood (2002) and Larry Kahener (1996), the outhors emphasize the crucial difference between competitive intelligence and industrial espionage, which lies in ethical and legal considerations.

There has been groeing awareness of the need for strong intelligence but its application is still limited to military and security areas, such as The National Intelligence Agency (BIN) and the Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS) (p.86). A gap in informastion management involoving the majority's necessities of life has thus emerged.

With this goverment policy and other nations economic advancements, the book suggests the Indonesian bussiness communty to proactively promote and create synergy from military intelligence, ecnomic inteeligence and other competitive intelligence to turn their companis into an instrument of forces buliding the national economy. Indonesia's leading positin as a country with the largest Muslim population has its strategic value economically and sociopolitacally in Southeast Asia,even in the Asia-Pacific region.

Japan is a nation witha high appreciation of competitive intelligence. The country, despite its limited resources, is capable of supplying 18 percent of the world gross product, turning out one-third of the auto-mobiles and computer chips troughout the globe. One of the keys to Japan's success is intelligence. These gives weight t some experts's statement that tehe success and strength of a country are directly proportionally to its command of competitive intelligence.

Apart from the advanteges for a country, the book also describes how an organization or company can benefit from competitive intellegence. Trought competitive intelligence, a decisionmaker can at least better understand his or her bussiness environment.

This book also helps readers acquire data by giving several website reference adresess relevant to bussinesses, such as market information and census information.

However, this book has some weakness, such as the title in english, which is counterproductive to the spirit of finding the proper equivalent in teh national language. Although it masy be considered original in its terminology, the writers consistenly use intelejen kompetitif instead of competitive intelligence.

As a whole, this book is interesting to read. Despite its serious theme, the simplicity and eloquence of its language makes the subtance flow like fiction, allowing readers to finish it in short time. If anyone wishes to follow upsome of the suggestions it offers, as indicate in its introduction, this book serves as a customized and special guide for the application of competitive intelligence. []

(Diketik ulang dari harian The Jakarta Post, 6 April 2003)