Home - Academy of Competitive Intelligence

Competing in today’s dynamic and disruptive marketplace is tough.

Going at it blind is even tougher.

How well do you understand the effect of today’s and tomorrow’s competition on the success of your company?

Get the Competitive Edge

Competing in today’s dynamic and disruptive marketplace is tough.

Going at it blind is even tougher.

How well do you understand the effect of today’s and tomorrow’s competition on the success of your company?

Get the Competitive Edge

The success of your strategy—at the product, market, business unit or enterprise level—depends on how and when you and other parties act or react to a changing market. But, strategy is meaningless without an insightful assessment of competitive market dynamics, and their implications for your business. The Academy of Competitive Intelligence provides world-class training that enables businesses to develop agile and resilient strategies in highly competitive markets.

We are NOT about competitor profiling, news monitoring, or other activities that are little more than collecting and warehousing enormous amounts of tactical data and unfiltered noise, or dumping “nice to know” information on uninterested users. We are the only accredited competitive intelligence training organization that knows what powerful competitive intelligence can do for you in your job. Let us equip you with this career-building skill that will pay dividends in your professional career, today and in the future.

While we don’t always agree with Gartner, we can agree with them that ACI is an
outstanding place to get trained in competitive intelligence.
(ACI is recommended by Gartner report G00781448, January 11, 2023)

Program Dates For 2023

2023 DATES

Analyst Asynchronous Option For CIP-ST SKILLS CERTIFICATION

Core Courses CIP-I VIRTUAL
October 26, 27, Nov. 1, 3, 10, 2023

Advanced Courses CIP-II VIRTUAL
October 30, Nov. 7-8, 13-14, 2023

Enroll Now & Pricing

“The ACI series of training courses were the most informative, interactive and effective courses I have ever attended!”
Matt Barham, Cisco Systems

What is competitive intelligence?

Competitive intelligence is the art and science of generating a deep understanding of marketplace players and industry forces. It enables executives to optimize their decisions in light of the plans and strategies of other high-impact participants in the external environment. High impact players include all third parties—not just competitors—whose interactions with the company is what determines strategic success.

TRAINING OPTIONS

CIP™ CERTIFICATION

If your job includes full or part-time responsibility for providing competitive intelligence to decision-makers inside your organization, ACI’s Competitive Intelligence Professional (CIP™) certification is a rigorous training program that will enhance the value you bring to your organization while providing skills that will last throughout your career.

Core CIP-I Program
Advanced Master of CI CIP-II Program
Elite CIP-III Program

THE COMPETE CHALLENGE

Every competitive intelligence professional serves hundreds if not thousands of users inside his or her organization. Few of them truly get CI. They think it’s “research”, or answers to questions, or “news” distribution, or mere competitors’ data. Give them the Compete Challenge. They’ll never look at you the same way again.

“The Most Successful Competitor Never Competes” Commentaries by Ben Gilad (Academy of Competitive Intelligence) and Jay Nakagawa (Dir. of CI at Dell Technologies and Chairman at SCIP)

What Our Alumni Say

Our alumni number in the thousands and are the most diversified group of professionals and managers coming from all six continents and hundreds of different industries. More than 50% of the Fortune 500 sent their people to train with us.

"The Academy of CI is fantastic and provides valuable training and certifications!"

Jennifer Marrion, CI Director SAIC

Click Here

"THE BEST CI TRAINING AVAILABLE"

Whether it’s a new analyst on your CI team taking the basic courses or an established practitioner coming back for advanced training this is the best CI training available. Competitive Intelligence training through ACI is not your ordinary training program. The instructors are engaging, the learning environment is challenging, and the case study-based approach for practice is essential to understanding what good CI is all about. You will leave the training with an expanded skillset, knowledge, and confidence to be a real CI practitioner and make an impact at your company.
Stacy Keding, Eli Lilly and Co.

"We accept no other"

I can tell you without hesitation that ALL of our competitive Intelligence personnel are certified Masters of Competitive Intelligence from ACI and we will accept no other certification. We have had nothing other than glowing responses from the Business Area VPs and our President with regard to the value of ACI’s contribution. They get my absolutely highest recommendation which is not casually given. You will not be disappointed with engaging them; in fact, you’ll be amazed and enlightened!
Bob Maszarose, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems

"World Class"

I found ACI as the gold standard in the industry and attended both CIP-I and CIP -II certifications and have been their greatest fan ever since. ACI has helped us define a world class CI capability and tie all work to actions and decision-making. We have been so successful our insights team has been moved directly into the strategy group closely aligning to our executives.
Heather Hallenbeck, Bose

"No Comparison!"

There is no comparison. ACI is a collection of all-stars sharing their knowledge. I wanted to let you know that we are now sending the rest of the team through ACI training! Also, our Finance CI team will likely be going through ACI training in the near future. We are on our way to building a strong, World Class CI team!!

I can’t sing enough praise for the ACI courses! Keep up the great work – You truly do believe in ensuring graduates have an impact in their organization.
Peg Wright, Sprint

Bring competitive intelligence to your organization!

ENROLL NOW

They are market research. We are competitive intelligence. Who wins?

This is a stupid question, but not completely without corporate context. Ben Gilad just finished teaching at the Academy of Competitive Intelligence winter core certification (CIP-I™) program with Troy Pfeffer and Heather Hallenbeck. In every program, there are at...

Why ACI & Why Certification?

This is simple to answer: we are the one that has been defining the curriculum in the field since 1999. You can take many courses in information management. We are the only ones training in intelligence. Intelligence is not information. Certification offers your...

How To Actually Put Your Marketing Data to Use

In most companies, marketers are in charge of assessing the competition. Because of this, close to 60 percent of all competitive intelligence professionals report to marketing. Yet the majority of marketers fail to use their competition analysts strategically…

ACCREDITATION

You can find courses on any subject on the internet. We are approved by the International Assoc. for Continuing Education & Training as “accredited provider.” It says something.