WHY COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE FAIL: INTERROGATING THE CORRELATES OF COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE FAILURE IN THE NIGERIAN BREWERY INDUSTRY

Globally, as businesses grapple with uncertainties and challenges of growth and expansion, competitive intelligence failure has remained an obvious reality. This work therefore attempts to evaluate the intervening variables underlying the menace of competitive intelligence failure in the business world. Specifically, the study identifies the factors responsible for CI failures in the brewery industry in Nigeria. The identified factors include; lack of planning and management skills by managers and top company executives, faulty business decision making process and implementation by management and lack of coordinated organisational culture and political climate in the brewery industry in the country. In reaching these analytical premises, the study adopted a quantitative evaluation of some breweries in Nigeria to determine the pattern and trends of the competitive intelligence correlates and offered corresponding recommendations that will help to mitigate the menace of competitive failure in Nigeria.


INTRODUCTION
Axiomatically, it has been established by scholars of business strategy and marketing that companies the world over survive and outperformed one another based on their superior competitive advantages typified in superior competencies in production and management functions vis a vis their contemporaries in the business space (Solovyeva 2021;Krylov 2022).
Modern business environment has become increasingly dynamic and constantly changing in nature and in character as a result of the stern competition occasioned by globalization, glocalization, advanced technology, socio-economic variables as well as other marketing dynamics.For organizations to remain competitive and stand the test of time and survive in such aggressive, competitive and contemporary business environment there is the need to know and have a better understanding and knowledge of the competitive forces that reshapes the behaviour of the environment in order to gain competitive advantage.
Most analytical flaws of competitive intelligence data stems from improper grasp of the scenario to identify weak strategic spots, limited assets in the company's portfolio and some intervening environmental variables.Consequently, opportunity analysis arms management with the knowledge of timeous actions to steer the ship of business management in the right course.In the same vein, Linchpin analysis can be employed to sieve through the most viable options amongst the multiple scenarios devoid of mere common sense in decision making.The manager is able to critically review all possible competitors' strengths and weaknesses in the business game world to ensure that the threats are adequately mitigated.Event analysis is also useful to the extent that management takes into cognizance all the external and internal events within the business environment that potentially impinges on the performance of the business in a competitive world.In all of these, it should be noted that the very nature of humans makes it impossible to flawlessly check the consistency and coherence of intelligence data.Realistically, what can be done is to try possible probabilities and predictions based on the margins of errors in each case until an accurate trend and pattern is significantly established.
Although the contributions and good intentions of an effective competitive intelligence system is widely recognized, there are still a lot of challenges that organizations are facing with competitive intelligence, thus leading to colossal failures.
Considering the levels of competitive intelligence failure, there exists challenges at the individual analyst level, analysis task level, internal organizational level and external environment level (Fleisher and Wright 2009) leading to failures.The component of the causes of failure in each of these levels are summarized in the table below as adapted from (Fleisher and Wright 2009).
Table 1.Four -Level Hierarchical Model of Analysis Failure.

Levels
Nature of Problem

Individual Analyst Level Failures
• Different natural analytical abilities.
• Naturally limited mental capacities.

Internal Organizational Level Failures
• Some decision makers don't understand and appreciate analysis.• Clients cannot specify their critical intelligence needs or questions.• Under-resourcing the analysis function.
• Lack of analysis-specific IT support.• Lack of thinking time.
• Organizational culture and politics.
• Time and trust.
• Misconception that everyone can do analysis.

External Environment Level Failures
• Growing range of competitive factors.
• Complexity and turbulence.
• Educational deficiencies.Bose (2008) posited that there are failures experienced by organizations while implementing competitive intelligence caused by ignorance and arrogance.Some organizations are simply missing the skills of gathering and analysing external information properly and effectively, others arrogantly ignore the use of competitive intelligence with the erroneous belief that they are already serving customers better and more effectively than competitors.Fleisher and Wright (2009) captured that some organizations use both centralized and decentralized approaches in their competitive intelligence activities.At the level of centralization of competitive intelligence activities Fleisher and Wright (2009) identified four problems that organization often face when implementing competitive intelligence system to include, number of collection targets, Expertise, relevance of analysis, organizational culture and politics.At decentralization level Fleisher and Wright (2009) identified three challenges that organization faces with decentralized competitive intelligence system.These challenges are Limited resources, Perception and opinion as well as duplication of efforts.
Apart from failures arising from the above, planning, decision-making and implementation failure also exist.These failures can be disaggregated along the traditional intelligence cycle function of planning, data collection, analysis, dissemination and communication (Chao and Ishii 2007).Johnston (2005) defined competitive intelligence failure as "systematic organizational surprise resulting from incorrect, missing, discarded or inadequate hypotheses" these failures are majorly caused by failed analysis as well as other factors that interact with the analysis process.Johnson (2004) identified that a variety of problems are associated with the evaluation of intelligence analysis and reporting that makes the task of competitive intelligence more challenging these includes, over estimation of the accuracy of their past judgements, underestimation of how much they learned from analysis products such as reports or belief etc.
According to Johnson (2004) when analysis is ineffective, both the analyst and the decision makers often do not know how in time and frequently cannot easily identify the root cause(s) of the errors, problems or failures.The main thrust of this research is to identify and deal with the root cause(s) of the intelligence failure.
Though there are number of benefits that have been recognized as accruable to organizations arising from effective competitive intelligence system, companies are still facing a lot of challenges in their competitive intelligence practice leading to problems and failures, these are remote and immediate causes of the competitive intelligence failure cause(s) attributable to the intelligence system of an organization such as insufficient understanding and application of analysis tools and techniques by individuals which often times resulted in the failure of competitive intelligence activities in a company (Johnson 2004;Darrell K Rigby 2001;D. Rigby 2003;D.K. Rigby 2009).
There is also a general misconception that everyone can do analysis, far from the truth, as analysis required a unique and differentiated form of pragmatic thinking as most individuals have neither been trained, nor have the natural ability to perform analysis.Other causes such as the missing link between the competitive intelligence professionals and the decision-makers, organizational culture and politics, globalization, glocalization, turbulent and complex environment of business have resulted in challenges leading to failures in the competitive intelligence system of an organization.Therefore, the focus of this research work is to identify and deal with the immediate and remote cause(s) of competitive intelligence failures of brewery companies in Nigeria.

Statement of Problem
Competitive intelligence has continued to gain wider acceptance since its introduction into the field of management sciences.
It is quite revealing that competitive intelligence has aided breweries in no small measure in their quest for competitive undertakings to gain competitive advantage as competition in the business environment continued to get stiffer arising from a number of uncertainties and other marketing dynamics.
One of the overriding importance of competitive intelligence is its ability to detect early warning signals by proactively monitoring competition and competitor activities and keeping business managers at alert.Furthermore, competitive intelligence has the capability of enhancing capacity building in breweries by providing a proactive platform for managers to deal with perceived threats and identify associated risks in the environment to gain competitive advantage.
In pursuance of the foregoing, breweries often times experience failures from competitive intelligence activities.There are immediate and remote causes of these failures which include but not limited to general lack of effective planning and management skill exhibited by the brewery's managers and executives, lack of critical and analytical thinking skills, faulty decision making processes and implementations, inadequate skill in information gathering sharing and analysing of external Following from the problems leading to failure of competitive intelligence activities breweries often find itself in a situation where it can no longer function as a viable commercial business entity.Such breweries in the face of failure will not be able to respond quickly and proactively to the early warning signals of perceive problems confronting the existence of the business, monitor competition, competitor activities and changing patterns of behaviour in the environment to enhance competitive advantage.
Therefore, it is the hope of this study to unravel the immediate and remote cause(s) of competitive intelligence failures in breweries and proffering enduring strategies for solutions leading to improved organizational performance and survival.
The broad objective of this study is to unravel the immediate and remote cause(s) of competitive intelligence failure of breweries in Nigeria.The specific objectives are: 1.To examine the effect of lack of planning and management skills exhibited by the managers and executives on competitive intelligence failure of Breweries in Nigeria.2. To investigate the effect of faulty decision-making processes and implementation on competitive intelligence failure of breweries in Nigeria.3. To ascertain if unstable organizational culture and politics has a significant effect on competitive intelligence failure of breweries in Nigeria.
The research questions are listed below: 1.Does lack of planning and management skills exhibited by the managers and executives has a significant effect on competitive intelligence failure of breweries in Nigeria? 2. To what extent does faulty decision-making processes and implementations affected competitive intelligence failure of breweries in Nigeria? 3. How does unstable organizational culture and politics affect competitive intelligence failure of breweries in Nigeria?

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT 2.1 Concept Clarification
Competitive intelligence is one of the relatively new concepts introduced into the field of management sciences.This concept was developed from main idea of porter's five competitive forces (Pellissier and Nenzhelele 2013).To ensure better understanding of competitive intelligence concepts, some experts and scholars from different schools of thought made concerted efforts to reviews some concepts, definitions and discussions.
According to Priporas, Gatsoris, and Zacharis (2005) competitive intelligence can be seen as a product and as a process.The product content of competitive intelligence is the data on the firm's competitors that forms the bases and the foundation for action.While as a process is the methodical acquisition, analysis and evaluation of data for competitive advantage over known and potential competitors.The collected data helps executives, to have a better understanding of their competitors and make better and strategic decisions.To Karim (2011) it was reported that competitive intelligence is a systematic process that allows for identifying competitors plans and intentions to obtain some advantage.It involves as a process the collecting, processing, analysing, and distributing to top management and various other decision makers any information about an organization external environment.
Competitive intelligence means a systematic process initiated by organisations in order to gather and analyse information about competitors and the general sociopolitical and economic environment of the firm (Colakoglu 2011).According to Kahaner (1997) it is conceptualized as a process of monitoring the competitive environment, with a goal to provide actionable intelligence that will provide a competitive edge to the organization.

Competitive Intelligence Failure
A number of articles have been published by scholars focusing on competitive intelligence failures attributing the cause of the failure to some immediate and remote factors including lack of support from some management mistake cause by competitive intelligence processionals, lack of understanding of the organization and its business environment (Maungwa 2017).According to Odendaal (2006) it was identified that problems of organizing competitive intelligence activities in the organization and ways in which lack of coordination can result to failure, Fleisher and Wright (2009) identified the four levels of competitive intelligence analysis failure.
According to Johnson (2004) intelligence failure are factual inaccuracies in analysis resulting from poor or missing data, intelligence failure is systemic organizational surprise resulting from incorrect, missing, discarded or inaccurate hypotheses.Jensen (2012) thought in a similar way that intelligence failure arises where analytical judgment turns out to be inaccurate.Brown (2008) reported that organization and its managers has a lot to learn in the face of failures but noted that it can only be critically examined with individuals with good analytical and critical thinking skill in identifying possibility and cause(s) of failure.Heuer (2005) and Underwood (1995) believe that much can be learned by managers and practitioners of organization with good critical thinking skills.The corporate existence of a firm is threatened by failure thereby exposing organization to a situation where it can no longer be able to stand the test of time and viable to continue to exist as viable commercial business entity.Johnson (2004) sees competitive intelligence failure as flaws in analysing data; and the incorrect articulation of key intelligence needs by extension.Johnston (2005) also reported that though failure may occur partly due to failed analysis, they are largely and significantly caused by other factors that usually interface with the analysis process.

Empirical Review
Fleisher and Wright ( 2009) reported in their study on the major causes of failure emanating from wrong analysis with reference to individual level through understanding and responding to problems leading to failure.The study adopted the research design, the result shows that the outstanding causes of intelligence analysis failure emanated from problems arising from individual analyst failure, the analyst task level, internal and external organizational level failure.The study concluded by aligning with the view of Gilad (1994) when he noted that intelligence provides insight into the external motivational factors, development that are likely to occur in the future and their organizational implications.In furtherance to the above, he noted that good intelligence is a function of accurate analysis of data collection which on the long run enables the organization to reduce the risk when working in the larger competitive environment and evaluating threats, opportunities, strengths and weaknesses.
In the study by Maungwa (2017) examination was made on the failure of competitive intelligence looking at the information behaviour perspective, the study adopted survey research design, it was revealed that the low usage and application of internal organizational information sources such as organizational libraries limit the wider acquisition to use relevant information sources.
The study in conclusion noted that competitive intelligence are prone to categories of failure which emanated from lack of knowledge advancement in information behaviour lens perspective and to come to terms with this reality, there should be efficient conduct of competitive intelligence process by way of tailoring methods.Procedures and techniques to be an integral part of information need be efficient conduct of competitive intelligence process by way of tailoring methods, procedures and techniques to be an integral part of information need determination and knowledge advancement in information gathering and sharing to support competitive intelligence professionals in minimizing cases of failure.
An exploration and understanding of the immediate and remote causes of competitive intelligence failure by Maungwa (2017) focusing attention on behaviour Lens perspective.The study adopted qualitative research data, the result revealed that lack of proper understanding of the concept and activities in the practice of competitive intelligence are largely responsible for the frequent business failures.The conclusion of the study exposed that knowledge advancement in the information technology in business practice can support the professionals to identify and be at alert on the early warning signals so as to avoid cases of business failures.

Nigeria Brewing Industry Overview
The Nigerian brewing sub sector is a major player in the socio-economic development of the country.Even in the face of economic vagaries plaguing the country the sub-sector still remains relevant till date.A sizeable number brewery in Nigeria may have closed shop due to severe economic depression and unsupportive business climate in the last few decades.According to Report (2006); Report (2021) the number of breweries in Nigeria in 1990 was about thirty-three (33) with total production capacity of 20 million hectoliters but by year 2013 only about four of these Breweries were still operational with production capacity of about 15 million hectoliters (15mhl) per annum.This is a reduction of five million hectoliters from what it was in the 90s.Today the figures hover around 23million hectoliters with about seven breweries due to increased population consumers of brewery beverages across the country.According to Experts, the brewery industry has a unique survival profile capable of making profits from increased consumption of beverages in times of great anxiety and economic depression.This reality is rare in business organisations across the globe.
The active nature of the Nigerian Brewing Industry cannot be over emphasised as it encompasses a long value chain of such players as brewing, bottling, sales and distribution of a wide range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.In general, there are seven listed major Companies in this sector in the country with some unlisted brewers which constitute less than 15% of the sector production volumes.The sector is significantly capital intensive, technical, closed and muzzles out new entrants into sector and ways that reflects the defensive oligopolistic trajectory in the industry.The brewery industry's resilience bestrides strict economic laws as consumption of brewery products may increase even in economic challenging moments reflective of the hedonistic pursuits to drink away sorrows and depression (Report 2021). .The following are the null hypotheses for the study.Ho1: There is no significant relationship existing between competitive intelligence failure and lack of planning and management skills exhibited by the managers and executives of breweries in Nigeria.Ho2: There is no significant relationship existing between competitive intelligence failure and faulty decision-making processes and implementations by breweries in Nigeria.Ho3: There is no significant relationship existing between competitive intelligence failure and unstable organizational culture and politics in breweries in Nigeria.

RESEARCH METHOD 3.1 Research Design
Survey research was adopted as the design of this research work.This method of research design is somewhat adequate and best for this study since the sole aim was to establish whether or not a relationship existed between the two variables i.e. causes of competitive intelligence failure in the brewery industries in Nigeria.

Population
According to oastdom.com and Wikiward there are sixteen brewery companies in Nigeria.So, the population of the study consists of all the breweries in Nigeria.

Sampling and Sampling Techniques
The techniques adopted in this study were a combination of disproportionate stratified and random sampling.The choice of disproportionate stratified technique seems adequate because of the scattered nature of the distribution of the companies.So, in order to capture and make every location of the company to be included in the study, the stratified sampling techniques was adopted for the simple consideration that the companies are unevenly distributed, and the researcher was disproportionate in choosing the companies.
Again, random techniques were adopted as a tool in selecting the companies and the respondent of the study as well.

Sample Size Determination
The sample size for this study is one hundred and twenty-eight (128).Eight staffs were randomly selected from the sixteen (16) companies as follows: two (2) management staff, three senior staff and three (3) Junior staff.So to get the sample size eight (8) staffs multiplied by the sixteen ( 16) number of companies made up the one hundred and twenty-eight for the study.

Research Instrument
Structural questionnaire is the main instrument for the collection of data.The researcher designed the questionnaire to be in two parts, A & B such that all the questions in part A provides general information about the respondents and part B addresses the research questions.Four points Likert scale format was used.

Validity of the Instrument
When the questionnaire for the study was drafted, it was given to other experts and scholars in the field of study to peruse and make their inputs, their outcome indicated that it was valid as no important variables were left out.Their inputs, suggestion and recommendation were considered in making the final draft.

Reliability of the Instrument
An instrument is said to be reliable if its capable of measuring the same phenomenon with the same instrument and yield the same result over a given period of time.
The alpha level of 0.6 or above is considered acceptable.In testing for the reliability of the instrument four (4) companies were randomly selected and twenty (20) staff were also randomly selected from the four (4) companies.
The Cronbach's alpha was used to test for the reliability of the study.The result of the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the variables was 84% reliable by extension it revealed that the instrument is reliable.

Method of Data Collection
Structured questionnaire was the method used to collect data for this study.The primary data used for this study were gathered through questionnaire.A structured questionnaire was used in gathering relevant data with options provided for respondents on a four points Likert scale.Response to items ranges from (4-Strongly Agree (SA), (3-Agree (A), (2-Disagree (D), (1-Strongly Disagree) (SD).

Method of Data Analysis
Out of 128 copies of questionnaire distributed 120 were returned.Descriptive statistics and Pearson's product moment coefficient of correlation were used for the analysis of data, based on this, rejection and acceptance of null hypotheses were established as a decision rule.If the calculated value is more than the critical value, reject the null hypotheses otherwise the alternative hypotheses will be upheld, or if the t-value is less than the alpha level of 0.05 reject the null hypotheses, 95% level of significance were used to test the hypotheses.

RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A total of 128 questionnaires were distributed and 120 were returned, meaning 94% response rate or 94 interests in the study by the respondents.In analysing the personal data simple percentage was used while in the research questions and hypotheses, the Pearson's product moment coefficient of correlation was used.The table above shows that male staff have 80(67%) and female staff have 40(33%).It concluded that male staffs are more in number.The above table indicated that respondents with SSCE qualification is 20(17%), OND/NCE is 30(25%), HND/B.Sc. is 40(33%) and M.Sc./MBA/PhD is 30(25%) Showing that greater number of the respondents are having HND/B.Sc.The breakdown of the above table revealed that respondents with less than 5 years work experience are 20 (17%), 5-9 years are 30(25%), 10-14 years 40(33%) and those above 14 years are 30(25%).Therefore, those in 10-14 years have more work experience.The breakdown of the table above shows that 60(50%) of the respondents strongly agreed that lack of planning and management skills exhibited by managers and executives have a significant effect on competitive intelligence failure of breweries in Nigeria, 52(43%) agreed, 5(4%) disagreed and 3(3%) of the respondents strongly disagreed.The table above table shows that 62(51%) of the respondents strongly agreed, 50(42%) Agreed, 5(4%) Disagreed and 3(3%) Strongly Disagreed.Total 120 100 The table above indicated that 60(50%) of the respondents strongly agreed, 53(44%) Agreed, 5(4%) disagreed and 2(2%) strongly disagreed.

Hypotheses Testing
Pearson's product-moment coefficient of correlation was used to test the hypotheses formulated for this study.Since the calculated value is 3.760 and the table value is 3.182 at 5% level of significance, the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted.It is concluded that there is a significant relationship existing between competitive intelligence failure and faulty decision making processes and implementation by breweries in Nigeria.

Test of Hypothesis Three
H03: There is no significant relationship existing between competitive intelligence failure and unstable organizational culture and politics in breweries in Nigeria.The value so calculated is 3.54 and the table value is 3.182 at 5% level of significance, the null hypotheses is rejected and the alternative hypotheses is accepted.The conclusion is that there is a significant relationship existing between competitive intelligence failure and unstable organizational culture and politics in breweries in Nigeria.

Discussion of Findings
This study examined the immediate and results causes of competitive intelligence failure in brewery industries in Nigeria and three hypotheses were formulated for the study.
The research findings indicated that in hypotheses one there is significant relationship existing between competitive intelligence failure and lack of planning and management skills exhibited by the managers and executives of breweries in Nigeria.This finding is in agreement with the opinion of Fleisher and Wright (2009) who stated that most of the business failures are commonly attributed to a general lack of effective planning and management skills exhibited by the firm's executives.The result of hypotheses two revealed there is a significant relationship existing between competitive intelligence failure and faulty decision-making processes and implementation by breweries in Nigeria.This finding is in tandem with the opinion of Maungwa and Fourie (2017) who revealed that lack of integration of competitive intelligence findings with an organization's strategic and decision making can attribute to competitive intelligence failure.This is also in tandem with the thinking of Gilad and Gilad (1986) who asserted that apart from the overt causes of intelligence failure planning, decision making, and implementation failure also exist.Hypothecs three revealed that there is significant relationship existing between competitive intelligence failure and unstable organizational culture and politics.This is in alignment with Gilad and Gilad (1986) that identified four problems that organization often face when implementing competitive intelligence system to include numbers of collection targets, expertise, relevance of analysis and organizational culture and politics.

CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS
There is no doubt that breweries in Nigeria often times experience problems in the course of implementing and application of competitive intelligence activities, thus, leading to colossal failures.These failures, more often than not leave the organization in a state of devastation such that it becomes difficult for organization to operate optimally, and as a viable commercial business entity.In some instances, these breweries may not survive the distress and end up closing shops.This can be seen in moribund ones at Skol Brewery in Agbarator, in Delta State, Pabod Brewery in Port Harcourt, Rivers State (now resuscitated under PPP arrangement).
When these breweries are in the state of distress as a result of the existence of factors leading to failure they will no longer be able to proactively identifying the early It is the hope of this study to proactively identify these immediate and remote causes of failure of competitive intelligence to enhance productivity.
To stem the tide of the overt and covert causes of failures of competitive intelligence in the breweries in Nigeria, the following policy recommendations are advanced.1. Breweries in Nigeria and indeed Africa, should as a matter of policy proactively put all necessary planning facilities in place to equip managers and executives with good analytical and critical thinking skills and be at alert in identifying perceived threats, monitoring and evaluating competition and competitors' actions confronting the corporate existence of the organization.2. Management of breweries should accurately analyse obtained information and data in order to lead them in taking good decisions and ensure effective implementation of the action plans.
Breweries should conduct a detailed environmental scanning through SWOT analysis in order to be abreast with the changing patterns of behaviour and identity early enough the cultural, political and other turbulent macro/micro environmental dynamics confronting the corporate existence of the organization.

Table 10 . Response on The Effect of Lack of Planning and Management Skills Exhibited by Managers and Executives on Competitive Intelligence Failure of Breweries in Nigeria.
There is no significant relationship existing between competitive intelligence failure and lack of planning and management skills exhibited by the managers and executives of breweries in Nigeria.

Table 14 . Response on The Effects of Unstable Organizational Culture and Politics on Competitive Intelligence Failure of Breweries in Nigeria.
September 2023  146warning signals of threats confronting the corporate existence of the organization, monitoring competition and competitors' activities as well as changing customer's behavioural patterns in the environment.