This is part 1 of a 3 part series on free v. fee based resources for competitive intelligence research. Part 1 showcases single search fee-based resources. Part 2 will take a look at the advantages and limitations of truly free Web resources. Part 3 will take a look at Web-based database resources accessible from most local public libraries.
One might argue that there are a plethora of free resources on the Web for competitive intelligence, and it would be hard to dispute that fact. The drawback is that free resources are quite disparate, require the researcher to interact with multiple resources one by one, contain information that may not be reliable, and have true limits on content that is actually free. So are truly free resources your best bet, especially if you are under a big time crunch?
There are several fee-based single search resources available among the big legal vendors that given the relatively low cost for a single search of multiple databases the cost may outweigh the time needed to do the research in multiple "free" Web resources. Lexis offers pay-as-you go access to SmartLinx Reports for businesses, locations, or persons. Similarly, West offers pay-as-you go subsriptions or flat-rate contracts for accessing business reports via either the Thomson Reuters Accelus platform or directly on Westlaw.com, and PeopleMap on Westlaw is an excellent single search resource for uncovering individuals. Most of these resources cost around $100 to search and may or may not also have an additional cost to download the report. Thus, care should be taken on their use depending on a client's ability to pay for the reports or your individual firm policy on treating these one-off services as overhead.
Nonetheless, if you're like most researchers your time is valuable and the ability to quickly locate infomation on a company or person may be vitally important, so the cost of the reports should be weighed against the hourly billing rate you would incur for searching the free disparate resources on the open Web.
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