Question

Clay, a chef and owner of Clayton's Siesta Grille, a popular restaurant in Sarasota, is always visiting his competitors to observe how they are doing things in their restaurants. He told one of his managers, "I eat dinner at a lot of restaurants because I want to know what is going on. I am always concerned that one of our competitors will surprise us with a new service or menu item, like ours but better." In which activity is Clay engaging?

	A.	competitive intelligence (Not This)
	B.	environmental scanning
	C.	corporate spying
	D.	management by observation
	E.	TQM

Answer 1

Answer: Corporate spying

Explanation: Corporate spying is also called corporate espionage in which a person trespasses into the competitor’s location in order to assess them and to learn their trade secrets without their permission. Competitive information also includes companies’ activities to gather and analyze the information about the competitors, business environment, etc., which can help them to identify the gaps and to develop strategies based on that. But the difference is that competitive intelligence is an honest method of research whereas corporate espionage may involve lying, spying to illicitly obtain information.