Stay ahead of the competition : How the perception of Competitive Intelligence influences the way Swedish startups are dealing with international competition.

Sammanfattning: This thesis is within the field of Competitive Intelligence. The thesis’s main purpose is to investigate how Swedish startups perceive Competitive Intelligence and how their perception influences how they are dealing with international competition in the domestic market. Even though Competitive Intelligence is not a new field, the existing literature over this topic is not very rich, especially regarding startups. In our work, through qualitative research based on eleven semi-structured interviews, with CEOs and founders of startups in Sweden, and a CEO of an Intelligence firm in Sweden, we argue that there are three approaches to Competitive Intelligence from Swedish startups. The competition-centric, the customer-centric and the market-centric approach. Furthermore, we propose that dealing with competition requires startups to establish an intelligence culture that involves everyone, as it enhances their alertness, contributes to the building of a competitive advantage, increases their sales efficiency and lastly using their “insidership” as it is proposed in the revised Uppsala Model, to gather information and deal with the competitors. Finally, from our findings we propose two new classifications in addition to Murphy’s five classifications of firms based on their engagement in Competitive Intelligence activities, “the Hesitant” and “The Arrogant”.