"There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction."
—John F. Kennedy

Do you know the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002? If you don't, you are not alone. But many very powerful, rich, and influential people know this act intimately. It is the law that required CEOs to certify that their companies' financial statements were true. Violating this law would send those people to jail.
Now imagine if there were another law that required CEOs to certify that their forecasts and strategic plans relied on a careful examination of the external environment. Furthermore, they would have to back up their oaths with proof of a serious competitive intelligence capability that monitors emerging structural changes in their industries. The lines to the county jail would be backed up to the local K-Mart.
There is a process that brings management closer to external focus. It is called competitive early warning. It helps companies decipher early signs of trouble before they mushroom into a full-scale crisis and identify early signs of opportunities before everyone else sees them. It makes planning more realistic and raises the prospects of success for strategies. It just might save your company and your career.
This book may not move any cheese, but it is a must for reasonable companies and smart managers who deal with uncertainty and competition. The competitive early warning process is a minimum insurance against strategic surprises. It allows managers to control risks—those risks that are controllable. If I were an institutional investor, I'd make sure the companies I invest in instituted one of the early warning models detailed in this book. If I were a manager, I'd put my company to the test in Chapter 10. If it fails, I'd run for my life. As an old saying goes, "Who is so deaf or so blind as he that willfully will neither hear nor see?"

请注意，这是CHM