THE ENCROACHMENT OF THE COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE'S FUNCTIONS ON THE COMPANIES' PROFIT

The United States of America has always aimed to maintain its hegemonic position in all highly profitable branches of activity: high-tech, cutting-edge technologies, pharmaceuticals, aerospace. Heading the most innovative markets is always corroborating with the industries' competitiveness and allows seeing the competitive advantage. The Competitive Intelligence is a new branch in business, originated in the American military intelligence work, was born only four decades ago. Disputable in the early years, it is today an activity of gathering and analyzing information fully placed in the ethical and legal order to support the decisions of top management executives. At the beginning, large USA companies started to hire retired intelligence officers in order to create early warning systems of competing companies' actions in order to provide a leverage to maintain and increase profits. Many companies made efforts to strengthen their leadership position towards competitors, without realizing that they actually call this activity Competitive Intelligence. The main functionality of Competitive Intelligence is to create a mechanism that provides understanding of the global information-based economy. It concentrates all important and actionable information to enable decision-makers to act faster and with more confidence. In the Competitive Intelligence process, the organization collects data and information about competitors, products and consumers before applying different analysis methods to identify key strategic implications. The paper describes the way the executives make better-informed decisions with a positive impact on the company's overall operations and profits.