Fuld-Gilad-Herring Academy of Competitive Intelligence
The Fuld-Gilad-Herring Academy of Competitive Intelligence is a first of its kind global educational organization solely dedicated to bringing professional training to the then fledgling field of competitive intelligence (CI). Established in 1996, the Academy has expanded its training to thousands of managers from 58 countries and six continents at its campuses in Cambridge, MA and Brussels, Belgium. The Academy is the only CI-dedicated institution to be externally accredited by the International Association of Continuing Education and Training (IACET). It grants the Competitive Intelligence Professional (CIP) certification based on a 9-course program, including a course in ethics and a pioneering course in business war gaming. To be certified, managers must complete the required coursework and pass a certification exam. To accommodate managers whose main interest is in using CI tools and managers working as CI professionals, the Academy offers two levels of certification: a basic CIP-I, and an advanced CIP-II. The Academy is currently the largest training institute in its field.
On March, 2011, the board of the professional association in the field of competitive intelligence- SCIP (Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals) voted to adopt the Academy's CIP program as its official global certification program to help create standards in the field of strategic and competitive intelligence. The certification was renamed SCIP-CIP certificate conferred by ACI.
The history of the Academy tracks closely the history of the field of competitive intelligence which has risen in importance during the 1980s with the increase in global competitive pressures and the spread of Internet search engines which made information more accessible. In 1986, the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) was founded in Washington, DC to serve as the professional association for academics, practitioners and consultants in CI. During the next decade, organizations experimented in acquiring and using CI with little discipline and no consistent results. For example, as a survey by the Academy showed, one of CI's main objectives, avoiding strategic surprises, was not being accomplished in many large companies. Three early developers of the Society banded together to create a standard of training and performance in the field. They were: Leonard Fuld, whose book, Competitor Intelligence, was the first best seller on the subject,Ben Gilad, whose book The Business Intelligence System created the benchmark for setting up a corporate CI function, and Jan Herring who was the founding director of the first competitive intelligence function created in 1982 at Motorola Corp. Together with the growth of SCIP, the creation of the Academy accelerated greatly the formalization and acceptance of CI functions and positions across global companies, with some estimating that 97% of Fortune 500 corporations today have at least one CI analyst in each of their larger business units.
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