Open-source routes to business intelligence (BI) and competitive intelligence (CI) include company Web sites, e-commerce advertisements, electronic full-text publications (e.g., annual reports; industry reports; journal articles; market research reports; newspaper articles), government filings, intellectual property information, and public records.  Online discussion forums focus on ethical and legal aspects of intelligence gathering programs, share strategies for analyzing and disseminating information about business competitors, and exchange proven techniques for measuring the value of mined data. Laws and regulations (e.g., Economic Espionage Act) are posted on the Web. Details about trade shows and conferences are publicized that can foster intelligence gathering. Software aids are evaluated for compiling and analyzing results. The following Web-based resources facilitate global intelligence research and investigative due diligence:

CAROL World (tm)
http://www.carol.co.uk/

Once you become a registered visitor, you have free unlimited portal access to thousands of annual reports for companies throughout Asia, Europe, and the United States. The site provides added-value features such as links to media sources, professional institutes, societies, and stock exchanges throughout the world. There are many reference resources listed that facilitate connections to sites such as FreeEdgar Online, which provides open access to data from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The NewSource current awareness page posts breaking news about business acquisitions and mergers.

Dialog ®
http://www.dialog.com/
This commercial online information service offers a range of capabilities and query options. For example, one can search simultaneously across hundreds of authoritative databases to locate basic company information, industry overviews, timely financial profiles, and insights about international competitive marketing. Added-value features include current awareness tracking for advertising campaigns, acquisitions and mergers, branding, e-commerce, employee diversity, executive profiles, exports, facility closings/relocations, industry rankings, investment opportunities,  investor interests, joint ventures, litigation, marketing strategies, global news, outsourcing trends, patents, product development trends, press releases, price trends, product recalls, sales promotions, subsidiaries, trade shows, and Web presence. Researchers have access to over 180 full-text publications that focus on various aspects of competitive intelligence. Dialog also offers specialized search products. For example, Dialog Company Profiles is geared toward comprehensive business intelligence and fosters comparisons of companies throughout the world. Dialog@Site offers end-user search interfaces of selected databases in languages such as Chinese, French, German, and Spanish.

DM Review Website
http://www.dmreview.com/
Here one has public access to current and archived articles published in the print version of DMReview magazine.  Focus is on business intelligence and data warehousing. Moreover, value-added portal features facilitate connections to subject-relevant Web resources covering topics such as competitor evaluation techniques, customer relationship management, data mining, decision support software analysis, e-commerce, enterprise resource planning, knowledge management, and on-line analytical processing (OLAP) tools. There are links to registration details for forthcoming Webcast seminars that also focus on business intelligence, edata warehousing, and enterprise analytics. The global events calendar gives detailed information about related conferences, expositions, and seminars.

Factiva (tm)
http://www.factiva.com
This is a fee-based service of Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive LLC. It delivers the full-text of worldwide news and comprehensive business information to the desktop. Web subscribers can research online a wide range of media offerings including thousands of newspapers, over 120 up-to-the minute newswires, scholarly and trade journals, transcripts of radio and television programs, and images. Public and legal records can also be searched. An added-value feature is access to the contents of the Fuld Competitive Intelligence Center. The Center, developed by Fuld & Co. (www.fuld.com) in conjunction with Factiva and Iron Horse Multimedia, Inc., strives to increase awareness about best competitive business practices. Also, it provides targeted multimedia competitive intelligence training and useful reference tools that facilitate strategic business decisions. 

Intelligence Brief
http://www.intelbrief.com/
This nonprofit Web portal features a growing collection of links to global resources that focus on intelligence and security issues.  There are about 200 topics covered including business intelligence, competitive intelligence, economic intelligence, foreign intelligence, and geo-political intelligence. Featured are links to scholarly reference resources, timely full-text international newsfeeds, and subject-relevant book reviews. Decision-makers may also profit by taking advantage of links to sites provided under security-related headings such as counterintelligence, intelligence law, intelligence history, computer security, and information security. 

LexisNexis(tm) Company Dossier
www.lexisnexis.com/CompanyDossier/
This subscription-based service is offered to current LexisNexis customers. Although an international resource, present emphasis is on U.S. publicly-traded companies. It draws not only from its own databases but also from several external authoritative business, legal, and news resources to compile comprehensive topic-oriented reports. For each company report, the service strives to provide an overview of the business, information about competitors, analyses of current news and press releases, financial data, court decisions, and intellectual property information. Controlled vocabulary terms facilitate current and retrospective database searching. Hyperlinks are provided to company information in other major directories (e.g., Standard & Poor's Register of Corporations). 

Search Engine Colossus
http://www.searchenginecolossus.com/
This cross-cultural portal identifies and provides swift hyperlinks to many unique Web search engines located in over 200 countries throughout the world.  Although primary focus is usually on native language searching, occasionally English language user-interface options are provided. This international directory is indexed by country and topic. It can be useful for gathering information about businesses and country-specific contacts in foreign lands. It provides trans-border inroads to the Web, often from unfamiliar viewpoints.

Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals
http://www.scip.org
This organization promotes skills building and ethical routes to fostering corporate intelligence gathering  programs. Their Web site offers information about CI analysis tools, strategies for hiring CI personnel, techniques for measuring the value of CI programs, details about CI conferences and trade shows, and systematic use of public and fee-based Web resources to glean CI information. Members are given Web access to the full-text of the three Society publications: Competitive Intelligence Magazine; Competitive Intelligence Review; SCIP's e-newsletter. 

The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI). 
http://www.dw-institute.com/
This membership-driven organization focuses on data warehousing and business intelligence strategies. Primary emphasis is on continuing education and dissemination of knowledge about new technologies. It sponsors awards, conferences, discussion forums for information exchange, publications, and seminars. Its Web site is useful for learning about industry trends, best practices for competitive advantage, analytics, computer applications, and case studies. It is a productive resource for publications including journal articles, books, newsletters, and white papers.