competitive intelligence

A broad definition of Competitive Intelligence is the action of gathering, analyzing, and applying information about products, domain constituents, customers, and competitors for the short term and long term planning needs of an organization. Competitive Intelligence (CI) is both a process and a product. The process of collecting, storing and analyzing information about the competitive arena results in the actionable output of intelligence ascertained by the needs prescribed by an organization.
Key points of this definitions:
Competitive Intelligence is an ethical and legal business practice. (This is important as CI professionals emphasize that the discipline is not the same as industrial espionage which is both unethical and usually illegal).
The focus is on the external business environment.
There is a process involved in gathering information, converting it into intelligence and then utilizing this in business decision making. CI professionals emphasize that if the intelligence gathered is not usable (or actionable) then it is not intelligence.