Information for innovation: strategic, competitive and technological intelligence

Résumé En

Any innovation process cannot take place without an informational input and this can take many different forms (panoramic patent report, trend analysis, market positioning, product image, etc.). In the limited, but already important framework of a product innovation, the provision of a useful informational supply in a timely manner is already a complex problem to solve. However, even in this more limited framework, informational supplies are varied. They can be classified into three categories: "classic" monitoring carried out in support of innovation processes, "creative monitoring" linked to the use of a creative process, and more general "strategic innovation monitoring" or requiring more specific operations. In order to understand these different variants of monitoring, we will first discuss the concept of monitoring. Then, some possible links between "classic" monitoring (such as strategic, competitive and technological monitoring) and an innovation process will be considered. Finally, we will discuss the specificities of information retrieval in an innovation framework and the particular cases of creative and strategic innovation monitoring.