Competitive intelligence in Greek furniture retailing: a qualitative approach

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine how furniture retailing firms in Greece monitor competition and its effects on the formation of their strategies with respect to competitive intelligence (CI) setting. Design/methodology/approach - The study is exploratory in nature and data were collected by carrying out semi-structured in-depth interviews with 15 senior managers in an area of strategic marketing importance in Greece, representing a reasonable percentage of the firms in the sector. Findings - Greek furniture retailing firms monitor competition with the help of traditional and effective marketing tools. Also, the pricing of the products is the principal information that the managers are interested in. Finally, the respondents believe in the importance of monitoring the competition and ideally they would apply it to their company. Research limitations/implications - This research is an exploratory study of a small sample of managers from the major companies in a national setting. Recommendations are presented for further research. Practical implications - In today's unstable business environment, CI can make a crucial strategic contribution to competitive success. It has clear value to strategic planning for marketing in Greece itself, but also in general. Originality/value - The paper offers empirical findings from furniture retailing companies, where a shortage of studies has been observed and broadly confirms the findings and conclusions of earlier studies in other industries in the international context.