Chapter 5: Using Databases for Corporate Intelligence

Electronic data bases are wonderful intelligence tools -- just realize their limitations. In particular, you must understand that instant information, doesn't necessarily mean current information. Just because you can receive immediate feedback after pressing the Return key, only tells you that data base has something to offer. What the computer does not tell you is that most information is not yet in electronic form -- nor will it likely be within your lifetime. What the lightning-fast response also fails to tell you is the information you are "instantly" receiving may be months or years old. What data bases can do is save you time and give you a breadth of knowledge about an issue or a competitor. They give you information, not intelligence. Intelligence requires analysis and the gathering of primary, first hand information. Can you do without data bases? No, not in today's fast-paced, international market. Use them. They are an important means to an end, not the end itself.


Until the mid-1980's, the ever-expanding electronic information industry still heavily favored the vendor, not the user. The seller of on-line data base time held the lion's share of computing power and the user very little. Now, a decade later, it's clear that technology's relatively high cost and limited capacity have given way to affordable access, powerful but inexpensive personal computers, and friendlier search tools. This availability and ease-of-use has in many ways turned the information -- and intelligence -- worlds upside down. For instance, the analyst can now carry and control entire archives, tens of thousands of records long.

Here are several specific ways technology has evolved and how that evolution has improved your ability to develop more accurate, more timely intelligence on your marketplace.

CD-ROMs: These miniature disks contain whole libraries of books and records. They give the individual researcher the power that once resided in mainframe computers and whose data could only be accessed through long-distance phone intelligence is concerned. CD-ROMs give you full freedom to roam through gobs of historical data instantly. Therefore, today's timesharing data base providers (such as those offered on Dialog) now have to maintain more timely data on their system. In the near future, nearly every data base producer will be publishing its historical data on CD-ROMs. The reason this technology has not trickled down to a larger segment of the corporate population is partly because of the relatively high costs of the disks and the still incompatible software interfaces needed to gain access to the data on the CD-ROM. This will all change with time, as the costs drop and software publishers adopt a de facto search and retrieval standard.

Electronic Bulletin Boards: These high-tech communication forums have given the intelligence analyst one of the most powerful weapons imaginable. You no longer need to know who the critical expert is or where he or she is located. Just type in your request into such low-cost systems, available through such vendorsProdigy, America On-line, Compuserve or the Internet, and the electronically-savvy expert might just find you.

Acknowledgment of Low-Tech Delivery: A number of data base publishers have long understood that there is a greater need for their information than is being realized. Ironically, the barrier to greater usage is the computer terminal itself. Not everyone finds the keyboard easy or natural to use. Many managers still prefer to hold a piece of paper in their hands rather than stare into a cathode ray tube. In recognition of this fact, companies such as WestLaw, a publisher of legal texts and data bases, also offer a service to deliver the same data to the client by fax. WestLaw calls its product Westfax. Individual, Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts company whose service is searching and organizing electronically-published news on certain markets, offers to fax client customized newsletters. Individual can also transmit its reports directly to more technologically sophisticated clients via their E-Mail system.

Storage and Retrieval of Images: With computing power increasing and the cost of storing data decreasing, publishers now can technically store and deliver images as well as text. It is copyright law that has held the information industry from delivering more images, along with the traditional text. Over the next few years, individual court cases and the various legislatures should resolve the many legal bottlenecks that still exist. But one way or another, I believe that economics of the marketplace and consumer demand will require more electronic transmission, not less. You will soon see images and text widely distributed. When that happens, not only will the corporate researcher be able to examine the corporate statistics, but also review publicly available photos, floor plans, and product illustrations.

Virtual Libraries: The library of tomorrow may be electronic. Since the early 1980's libraries have built numerous networks, linking their catalogs with one another. The next big step, which has already begun, will take the actual texts themselves and place them on-line. How might this help the competitive analyst? For instance, you may want to know about a new technology or process and can simply sit down at your computer terminal and pull up an arcane Ph.D. dissertation or a conference paper -- in full. By going straight to the original source documents, you will see the information unfiltered and unedited.


Data Bases: A Definition
What is a data base? A data base is simply a collection or pool of information that is recorded, indexed, and stored on a computer. In other words, it is nothing more than a computerized reference book.

Through a computerized index, you, the researcher, have an almost unlimited ability to find the information you are looking for -- if you know and understand how a data base works. A decade ago, the majority of my audience had not worked directly with electronic data bases. Today, even grade schoolers can walk into small community libraries and use CD-ROM indexes of news articles and their library's own card catalog. In fact, once the researcher starts roaming through the electronic card catalog, he begins to see he is no longer limited by hard copy index cards with fixed terms. An electronic data base permits the researchers to try whatever terms he or she wants, letting the computer program search throughout the data base's records -- from title, to author, to abstract, to index terms - to find the words that the researcher requested.

How a Data Base System Works
This section is directed to the data base searcher, the person who directly conducts the electronic searches. Nevertheless, the manager should understand how and why the searcher has access to so many data bases and how those data bases need to be used. I want to close the "expectation gap" between the searcher and the manager, requesting the information. The manager may have high expectations for the searcher. Yet the searcher, not knowing what the client wants or needs, may be unable to deliver the goods. This section, therefore, deals with the reality of data bases, how they are built and what they can -- and cannot -- do.


A Brief Explanation
A data base supplier is no more than a publisher. But instead of printing the work on paper, the supplier places it on an electronic medium (a disk or a tape). From there the tape is sent or electronically transmitted to the distributor or vendor who is in turn linked into a telecommunications network. The vendor, such as Dialog, Nexis or Compuserve, has created a common search language so that a librarian can search more than one data bases from any number of suppliers.

Data base vendors charge the user by the time spent on the system. Some services will require an additional subscription fee, and others allow users to pay as they go. In other words, a user pays only for the time spent on the system.

Many services, such as Dialog or Nexis, strongly urge or require the user to attend one of their system training sessions before using the system. The sessions cost approximately $100-200, but usually pay for themselves with the free search time given by the service to attendees. By all means sign up. The time you will inevitably waste on the computer system will translate in to lost dollars -- dollars that could have been better spent attending the service's training seminar.

To find an appropriate data base, first contact the various vendors listed on the following pages to request information on their respective systems. Next, call your local library or library school. Speak to the person in the reference section who does the searching. Ask him or her for the pros and cons of each data base system or vendor, and then which is the best system for you based on your needs and budget.

SDI: An Executive Reminder Service . . . At Bargain Basement Prices
Librarians and information professionals first coined the term Selective Dissemination of Information, SDI. An arcane term but a powerful service. [ Most managers, when they first heard the term, would say Star Wars, thinking I was talking about Strategic Defense Initiative, the high-tech military umbrella designed during President Reagan's years in office.] Since that time the data base services have begun calling the service, simply Current Awareness -- a much more friendly title.

SDI is simple to use: You or your librarian enter a search strategy you wish to pursue on a regular basis. Let's say, each month you wanted to track GM's plans for its mini-van's and the marketing strategy for those vans. You would select the appropriate data base (such as PTS PROMT) and send that search strategy to the Dialog system computer for storage in the SDI section. Every time Dialog downloads new data onto the PTS PROMT data base, Dialog would first pass the data by your search. Any time your search matches information contained in one of PTS PROMT's records, the system copies the record onto your personal electronic file. Depending on the PTS PROMT weekly update cycle, Dialog would send you the results of the SDI search. Most systems allow you to receive either the printout in paper form via the regular mail, or electronically by depositing the report in your electronic mail box. If you opt for the later choice, you need only sign onto to your account and download the information onto your desktop computer.

Current Awareness is wonderful tool because it reminds you automatically. As your workday becomes overrun with one to-do job after another, it becomes too easy to push off -- and eventually forget - old tasks in favor of new ones. The thought of going to your library or computer terminal to conduct a laborious search can become yet another overwhelming task. Yet, you must monitor your competition meticulously and frequently. With that mandate in mind, SDI represents due diligence. After all, Murphy's Law would state that "A competitor will take advantage of a market opportunity just when you do not expect him to do so."

A final point: SDI's can actually save you money. Because many vendors run their customers' SDI searches in the middle of the night in batch mode, when the system has low usage, you receive the savings.

Which Data Base System to Choose
Today's data base vendors offer a vast array of data bases at highly competitive rates. Gone are the high subscription fees and much of the exclusivity that used to mark the data base world. Systems, such as Dialog, Nexis and Orbit, carry many similar -- if not the same -- data bases. Yet, there are differences. Some professional searchers prefer one system's search language over another. Also, certain systems specialize. Some may encompass only technical sources; others may contain data bases that cover certain geographic regions. Newsnet, for example, only contains newsletters in full text. Dow Jones stresses its daily news feeds.

Despite the numerous vendors that have risen and fallen over the years, Dialog remains the leader in overall user friendliness and technical depth. Its selection of data bases is among the largest under one system umbrella.

The following list of data base vendors is divided into three sections. The first describes the traditional data base vendors, such as Dialog and Nexis; the second lists vendors that also offer E-Mail options, a critical new pathway for the high-tech analyst who needs to find an expert or expertise; the third provides a list of international (non-U.S.) systems and data bases.

Data Base Vendors
1) BRS Information Technologies, 8000 Westpark Dr., McLean, VA 22102, (703) 442-0900; (800) 289-4277; Fax: (703) 893-0906. BRS has always favored the education and general library market, and as such contains a wide array of healthcare, science, social science and medical data bases. At last count, it listed over 120 data bases on its system. It offers a low-price subset of its larger system, designed to run off hours and is appropriately called BRS/After Dark.

2) DataTimes Corporation (Parkway Plaza, Suite 450, 1400 Quail Springs Pkwy., Oklahoma City, OK 73134, (4050 751-6400; (800) 642-2525. Data Times is one of the two systems specializing in offering local news sources -- critical to any competitive analysis. Do you want information on a Boston-area high-tech company? If so, go to the Boston Globe, not The Wall Street Journal. Not only will you likely receive more information from a local source, but you will read it from a different perspective and probably in greater depth. DataTimes offers over 80 news sources on-line, most in fulltext. Remember what Tip O'Neil, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, used to say: "All politics is local." Keep in mind that so too is intelligence. For local intelligence, look for local sources.

3) Dialog Information Services (3460 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304, (415) 858-3785; (800) 334-2564; Fax: (415) 858-7069. Because of its 400+ assortment of technical and business data bases, our librarian will often first choose Dialog to understand a market or a competitor. Features, such as the Dialindex, make it relatively easy for the searcher to determine if the system contains information on certain subject and which of the data bases contain the information. Dialog provides a wide variety of telecommunications networks which truly give it a global reach. Its own Dialnet allows researchers to transmit and receive data at 9600 baud. Dialog has also become a stiff competitor to other vendors. For example, it recently acquired VuText, a set of data bases offering local news coverage, similar to DataTimes. Data-Star, a European vendor of data bases (often referred to as the Dialog of Europe), has also been acquired by Dialog. On another front, Dialog's newsletter data base competes with the Newsnet system. Its documentation is clear and thorough. The "Blue Sheets," as the data base descriptions are called, offer sample printout of typical records, as well as laying out the characteristics of each data base. Dialog is a very aggressive and customer-oriented company. Since its founding over 20 years ago, it has remained the pace-setter among the vendors.

4) Dow Jones News Retrieval (Dow Jones & Company, Inc.), P.O. Box 300, Princeton, NJ 08543-0300.: Dow Jones has geared its service towards providing current world and national news with a special focus on the business world. Aside from carrying The Wall Street Journal, its company-owned newspaper, it also lists stock quotes. Unlike DataTimes or the regional business data bases of Dialog, Dow Jones principally covers national and international news.

5) DRI/McGraw-Hill 24 Hartwell Avenue, Lexington, MA 02173, (617) 863-5100. Aside from listing stock and commodity price data, DRI is known for its packaging and massaging of government-generated data on a global scale. This is a system that is respected and long-used by corporate economists to help them plan their company's strategic direction. In addition, DRI owns and distributes the Dodge series of construction data bases. This is a key source of data on new plant construction.

6) GE Information Services, 401 N. Washington Street, Rockville, MD 20850, (3010 340-4572, (80) 638-9636, Fax: (301) 294-5501. This system specializes in delivering currency, gross national product and overall economic data. Like DRI, this source offers strategists a long-term planning tool.

7) Mead Data Central, Inc. (Nexis, Lexis), 943 Springboro Pike, P.O. Box 933, Dayton, OH 45401-9964, (513) 865-6800, (800) 227-4908. When it first appeared, the Nexis system was the only system offering fulltext articles. Today, Nexis has competition, but still remains a sweeping system that has become, along with Dialog, one of the leading data base vendors. Its covers general news, as well as specialty trade magazines. Over the years, it has also added a number of local business news sources, such as Crain's Detroit Business and The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky. Its Lexis system is, along with WESTLAW, one of the two systems providing the legal community with on-line access to the latest legal and legislative changes.

8) NewsNet, Inc., 945 Haverford Road, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, (215) 527-8030, (800) 345-1301, Fax: (215) 527-0338: Since its inception, NewsNet has built its reputation upon offering fulltext newsletters on-line. In many instances, the searcher can find the newsletter on-line faster than he would by mail as a subscriber. The system has a strong collection of newsletters in Financial Services, Healthcare, Computers and Technology, Defense, Environment and a number of other areas. As do many of the other systems, NewsNet offers an SDI/Current Awareness service that will allow automatic scanning of the latest news.

9) ORBIT Search Service, 8000 Westpark Drive, McLean, VA 22102, (703) 442-0900, (800) 456-7248, Fax: (893-4632. Over the years, this vendor has maintained a strong set of data bases serving the scientific and engineering communities. ORBIT offers such data bases as Chemical Abstracts, U.S. Patents Abstracts, RINGDOC and World Patents Index.

10) QL Systems Limited (901 St. Andrew's Tower, 275 Sparks Street, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1R 7X9, (613) 238-3499, Fax: (613) 548-4260. This system heavily covers Canadian business and maritime law and offers important data for any non-Canadian company needing to understand the Canadian market.

11) Quotron Systems, Inc., 12731 W. Jefferson Blvd. P.O. Box 66914, Los Angeles, CA 90066, (213) 827-4600. The Quotron system is a name that has become synonymous with stock quote data. This system contains data bases that include: Australian Sharewatch, CurrencyWatch, Markets Charts, Munifacts, and S&P MarketScope.

12) West Publishing Company- WESTLAW, 610 Operman Drive, P.O. Box 64526, St. Paul, MN 55164-0526, (612) 228-2500. West Publishing has long been a specialty publisher in the legal marketplace and some years ago began to create an on-line data base system devoted to serving the legal community. WESTLAW has since become one of the two providers of on-line legal data to lawyers, corporations and legal libraries. Its innovative WestFax service, cited above, is testimony to the creative approaches this company has taken to delivering its data to its broad audience.


Electronic Bulletin Board Systems
Each of the following electronic networks can expand the knowledge and information reach of the analyst many fold. These networks allow you to find the experts, or those who can find the experts. Using an electronic mail system, however, is not a sure-fired way of locating your information. They can be quirky and indirect. Many times, you may come up empty: no one happens to read your message or the importance of it goes unrealized. On the other hand, there are a group of people out there, "Techno-hobbiests," who may have the answer you seek. The systems run by these folks tend to be expensive. In general, though, the cost for seeking information is relatively low. Give it a try. At the least, you will be rewarded with some interesting electronic chatter. At the most, you may find your intelligence gem.

1) America On-line, Inc., 8619 Westwood Center Dr., Vienna, VA 22182, (703) 448-8700, (80) 227-6364: One of the original and still most popular systems, America On-line offers exchanges on such bulletin boards as the Independent Investors Forum.

2) Compuserve Information Service, 5000 Arlington Centre Blvd., P.O. Box 20212, Columbus, OH 43220, (614) 457-8600, (800) 848-8990: Aside from carrying a wide variety of popular data bases, Compuserve, one of the most popular electronic mail systems with millions of subscribers, offers a wide variety of forums, including: AI Expert Forum, Astronomy Forum, Aviation Forum, Broadcast Professionals Forum, Computer Club Forum, Consumer Electronics Forum, Digital Research Forum, Florida Forum, Foreign Language Forum, Graphics Support Forum, Investors Forum, Military Forum, Photography Forum, Space Forum, Sports Forum, Students Forum, Travel Forum, and others.

3) The Internet: Unlike the others in this list, Internet is not one centralized E-Mail system. Instead, it is a collection of computer networks with shared software standards. This network allows the analyst to roam globally from one electronic mail or data base system to another -- provided that system is part of the network and provided the user has the appropriate password for that end of the system. Scientists use the Internet to exchange information globally, or to send out queries to their colleagues, not knowing who might have the answer. In order to understand the power and reach of the Internet system, I recommend you review The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking, Trady LaQuey and Jeanne C. Ryer (Addison-Wesley). To start searching the system, you need to sign onto one of many Internet access providers, such as Delphi (800-365-4636), World (Software Tool & Die 617-739-0202). Other services, such as Compuserve, will also allow you access to the Internet system.

4) Prodigy Services Company - PRODIGY, 445 Hamilton Ave., White Plains, NY 10601, (914) 993-8000: A Sears-IBM joint venture, this is a popularly marketed electronic mail and information services system. Its value to the competitive analyst is the many millions of subscribers that may read your question. Remember, specialists don't always walk around with clearly defined labels. Remember, specialists don't always walk around with clearly defined labels. Who knows -- the "expert" you seek may spend his or her time surfing through the Prodigy System, rather than lecturing at Oxford.

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