Study on Competitive Intelligence Service Provided by University Libraries to Enterprises

Enterprise Competitive Intelligence emerged in 1980s in the United States. As Society of Competitive Intelligence Professional, SCIP was founded in the States in 1986, many companies in the United States, Japan and European countries all began to pay attention to Competitive Intelligence and built their own Competition Intelligence Systems. In China, Society of Competitive Intelligence of China (SCIC) was founded in April 1995, which indicated that the competitive intelligence profession of China had entered the stage of organized development. By adopting the methods of document content analysis and internet investigation, this paper proposes that University libraries should provide competitive intelligence service for companies. It contends that under the environment of rapid development of marketing economy and strong demand of competitive intelligence from enterprises in China, University libraries should make full use of its conditions and advantages in resources, equipments, talents and experience to provide CI service to enterprises. Was and strategies for University libraries to conduct CI service have also been suggested. The paper concludes that for University libraries to provide CI service to enterprises not only offers development space for University libraries in CI markets, but also promotes resource reorganization and optimization for enterprises. It is therefore mutual beneficial for the development of both University libraries and enterprises.