The cycle of competitive intelligence as a tool to strengthen the cooperation in the Spanish pharmaceutical industry

It is common to find Competitive Intelligence activities within the high-tech enterpnses in particular in the pharmaceutical industry. These companies not only use the process of Competitive Intelligence (CI) to act against competitors, traditional aim of the CI. It is increasingly used to enhance cooperation. The cycle of CI is used both as to extract offensive and defensive intelligence as cooperative intelligence. The paper presents the results of a sample study of 186 Spanish pharmaceutical companies that were asked about the purpose of cooperation in their CI activities. The results confirm that these are used in the development of business relationships, search for partners, joint research, etc. and that companies bet on these relationships for the future within the CI.