Recently, a hugh trade deficit, hovering around $150 billion, has become an important public policy issue in the United States. In the current debate on this deficit, most attention has been on unfair trade practices. However, this is not the most important cause of the problem.

How many companies are truly prepared for the increased competitive threats they will face in this decade? The authors suggest that firms assess the type of internal information infrastructure that makes most sense for their competitive intelligence efforts.