According to Fuld & Company, a Boston-based competitive intelligence (CI) consultancy, the USA’s top companies are likely to raise their budgets on information gathering and analysing over the next five years. Fuld’s predictions are based on data from the recent Global Benchmark Study of 141 corporations, which forecasts the amount that the top 1,000 companies will spend on CI will increase from a current $1 billion to at least $10 billion by 2012.

This estimated data only indicates internal staff overheads and does not include the costs associated with the use of outside resources, such as consultants, subscriptions and database service. Fuld also states that CI expenditures worldwide were nearly zero in 1990s, as most companies hid the capital within the market research and strategic planning sectors.

It is notable that the projection which Fuld has given divides the most profitable 1,000 companies into five main industry categories. All of them have differentiated financial budgets in terms of CI investment, for instance, the pharmaceutical sphere has the highest proportion whereas the financial services and the legal arena have the lowest. Fuld then apEdwin Baileyplied this range of CI costs to the Fortune 1,000 list.

Although most business executives would agree that information is a key to running a successful company, there may be scepticism regarding the true value of increased investment in Competitive Intelligence .