Competitive Intelligence Maturity Models: Systematic Review, Unified Model and Implementation Frameworks

Competitive Intelligence (CI) is vital for sustaining the performance of organisations in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. However, the impact of CI on performance is proportional to its maturity level. The article aims to review and integrate the existing literature on Competitive Intelligence Maturity Models (CIMMs) to provide a go-to framework for setting up, assessing, and developing CI. The CIMMs were sourced from scholarly databases, registers, the social web, and using backwards and forward searches. All the CIMMs respecting the characterisation criteria were included in the study. A scientific and empirically validated definition of CI guided the integration and synthesis of the fourteen selected CIMMs. The primary outcome is a proposed unified CIMM (UCIMM) covering all the CI dimensions and aspects in tandem with the respective implementation guidance frameworks. The proposed UCIMM and implementation frameworks effectuate the guidance needed to set up, assess, and develop the CI practice and theory and, ultimately, the performance of organisations.