Comparative Study of Competitive Intelligence Practices between Two Retail Banks in Brazil and South Africa

Using competitive intelligence (CI) can help developing countries to increase their competitiveness. This paper compares the CI activities between two retail banks in Brazil and South Africa. An e-mail survey in a sample of 2550 employees in a retail bank in Brazil and 847 employees in a retail bank in South Africa was carried out in which CI practices were measured. Respondents in both countries were not very effective to conduct effective CI analysis. Respondents from Brazil consider information on operational risks as the most important while for South African respondents the most important information was on changing regulatory requirements. Although there is a culture of competitiveness in both organizations, it is recommended that if they want to compete effectively in the global economy, they should create CI awareness by organizing CI training sessions for employees.