Mkt_675_Final.docx Final Project: Analysis and Recommendations MKT 675 Southern New

Mkt_675_Final.docx    Final Project: Analysis and Recommendations  MKT 675   Southern New Hampshire University    Introduction  Digitally, competition in the marketplace is robust. Companies must have awareness of their competitors if they fail in the awareness of what their market is doing it would be detrimental to the viability of the company. Being cognizant of their market affords them the ability to identify and predict potential threats or opportunities and react to them quickly. The utilization of competitive intelligence which is simply put by du Toit, œa process or practice that produces and disseminates actionable intelligence by planning, ethically and legally collecting, processing and analyzing information from and about the internal and external or competitive environment to help decision-makers in decision-making and to provide a competitive advantage to the enterprise (2015).  Ethical standards are in place to ensure that companies don™t risk their brand for the purpose of competing with another in their market. Merck™s risk in refusing to disclose risks associated with their product Vioxx. Understanding that they themselves conducted the study that revealed the possible harmful effects of the product did not preclude them from acting responsibly. Instead for the sake of remaining competitive in a product market, the information was ignored and even actively dodged by marketers when asked about its safety. Emails indicated that studies done in the Vigor trial by Merck showed an