Examination of the stages of intelligence provision in pharmaceutical companies indicates at least two ways whereby the process may be made more productive. One of these involves closer integration of the elements of the process (data acquisition, information analysis and intelligence ‘delivery’) by means of a learning model that requires embedding intelligence analysts in the decision-making process. The second is the establishment of intelligence-focused communities of practice within and across the firm. Both these knowledge-based approaches are predicated on effectively harnessing the tacit knowledge of individuals in order to improve the quality of decision making in organisations.
