(FORTUNE Small Business) – Lisa Richman doesn't perform any scientific research for Biolex Inc., a three-year-old biotechnology company in Pittsboro, N.C. Even so, she may turn out to be one of the most valuable of the company's 39 employees. Richman joined a few months back as an information specialist--digging up data about other companies in the industry. The targets range from competitors to potential partners. The goal: to give Biolex a competitive edge.

In mid-March, Richman sent an e-mail to Paula Sullivan, vice president of health care and biopharmaceuticals at Fuld & Company Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., a leader in corporate intelligence work. "I would like to start getting us geared up for protecting ourselves while at the same time learning how I can legally find out information about possible competitors/partners," she wrote. Sullivan responded with a shopping list of suggestions, ranging from Websites to specialized industry publications. These sources will provide Biolex managers with the equivalent of night-vision glasses, enabling them to see what their competitors are doing in the dark. "Competitive intelligence will help determine what choices we make," says Richman.

Using entirely legal means of intelligence gathering, companies can unearth a great deal about competitors and their plans. In fact, the information is there for the taking, awaiting only some energetic sleuths able to devote the substantial amount of time it takes to collect and analyze it. "When a business transaction takes place, information rides piggyback along with it," says Leonard Fuld, founder and president of Fuld & Co. "You can't make a transaction happen without it." Every contract, every hiring decision, every compliance with a state or federal rule, generates information that becomes available--either through documents generated by the transaction or through people who had some direct involvement.

But be forewarned: The task of collecting information requires persistence. There are many dead ends. Scores of interviews may be required before the pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together.

An intelligence sleuth's best ally is the government, which collects enormous amounts of information--from factory floor plans to detailed import data--and often makes it available as required by law. You can obtain many documents online, through a phone call or letter, or by driving to town hall.

Assembling the data is only the first step. Analyzing it is what ultimately makes the data most useful. "You need to spend time adding expertise to the data," says Fuld. "This is not about just collecting the most marbles. It's about what you do with those marbles."

How do you begin the task of corporate intelligence? Define what you need to find out. Assign an employee the task of collecting key information. Make sure financial and technical people devote adequate time to interpreting the data. Herewith, a few scenarios to show how to approach some commonplace intelligence-collection problems.

I just heard a rumor that one of my competitors is starting development of a new product or service aimed squarely at our most profitable market. How can I figure out what this competitor is up to?

You may get the most valuable information by talking up contacts at trade shows and other industry functions. But additional steps will help. "In one case we knew about a company's new product a year before their product even came out," says Nan Bulger, Fuld's vice president of global manufacturing industry consulting. Some suggestions:

Research competitors' job postings.

What kind of people is your competitor trying to hire? This is sometimes the single most valuable clue to its future intentions. "It may indicate that the company is getting serious about starting a new area of business," says Bulger. Want ads, especially those recruiting marketing and technical help, often reveal a company's plans inadvertently through a description of the experience and expertise required for the job. For example, many want ads say that a new hire must be competent with certain types of equipment or software--often a dead giveaway of the company's intentions. Look for job postings in local or national newspapers, on your competitor's Website, or on any of the well-used job-posting Websites.

Get critical data from the docks.

The equipment and raw materials that a competitor imports into this country are often a sure sign of readiness to offer a new product or service. For that information, you can search The Journal of Commerce PIERS (Port Import Export Reporting Service) database, available at www.piers.com. The PIERS service makes detailed information available on imports and exports, each day collecting more than 10,000 bills of lading from U.S. Customs Service records. You can track what competitors are importing into this country, getting such information as product descriptions or raw materials (from the bill of lading or manifest), the quantity of the shipment, and the estimated value. From that information either you or your technical people may be able to figure out what a competitor has in mind. If a competitor is importing large quantities of a raw material, for instance, it is probably planning to manufacture something now. If it's a small quantity, it may still be in the research and development stage.

Discover what equipment your competitor has recently installed through UCC filings.

If you can find out what equipment your competitor has just installed in a plant or office, you may be able to figure out what's going on behind closed doors. How do you find that out? Many companies, especially small ones, can't afford a major purchase of equipment without a commercial loan to finance it. After making a loan or a leasing arrangement, banks typically file a Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) form with the state. The form describes the purchased equipment, the date of purchase, and the name of the secured party. If the UCC filing lists the manufacturer of the equipment (very likely), call that vendor and ask questions about your target company and its intentions. Also, ask for spec sheets; the specifications will provide data from which you can estimate such factors as the manufacturing capacity of the plant. Call the office of the secretary of state in the state capital.

Look up press releases.

Companies regularly announce such events as new hires and the opening of a plant, which can provide clues about the direction of the company. Search the Websites of your trade publication, and especially newspapers in the community around the facility. Many companies supply press releases through the PR Newswire, which is available at www.prnewswire.com.

Debrief your purchasing clerks.

Perhaps your most underutilized resource is right down the hallway. "Your purchasing clerks may hear about things earlier in the food chain," says Fuld. On the phone all day with suppliers and vendors, they often hear rumors about what competitors are planning. If they are not coming up with such information, assign them a few open-ended questions to ask of everyone they encounter.

An important competitor is underpricing me. What I need to know is this: How is the company able to do it?

Some competitors sacrifice profits for a while in order to build market share. But a competitor who offers consistently lower prices may in fact enjoy a real cost advantage against your company. If that's so, failure to get your own costs in line could lead to a slow death spiral. What information do you need? The first step is to create a side-by-side profit and loss statement--one for your own company with all the costs filled in, another for the target company with the same categories left blank. With good intelligence work, you should be able to fill in most of the blank entries. However, to make sense of the raw data, you'll need both financial and technical people on hand for analysis.

Recall that you can get detailed information about equipment and raw material costs by examining PIERS reports on import activity, and UCC filings will provide financing information on equipment purchases. Through interviews with a variety of people you can get information about the wages and benefits offered by your competitor (see next scenario). Some other routes to take:

Let the OSHA inspector be your eyes.

When an inspector from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) inspects a plant, he typically makes detailed notes that give you a picture of the facility. Often the notes include a description of various work areas, the equipment and raw materials, and the number of employees. Similarly, many states have their own workplace inspectors, who file reports open to public inspection. Using this information, says Bulger, "you can sit down and build a picture of the manufacturing processes," and from that take valuable clues that can help you estimate costs. Brief summaries of OSHA reports are available at www.osha.gov. Obtain the full report by making a request under the Freedom of Information Act to the OSHA office that conducted the inspection. Your brief letter should cite the inspection date and facility.

Visit the tax assessor's office.

Through public documents, you can find out the value of your competitor's plant, property, and equipment, as well as the value of vehicles owned by the business if there is an excise tax. The documents will provide the property tax assessed to the company each year.

Obtain filings from the building-inspection office.

Want to look inside your competitor's office or plant? The building-inspection office has publicly available files that contain the building plans of every structure in town. Although the floor plans may not indicate the exact contents of a plant, they do reveal its dimensions and configuration, from which you can deduce such things as whether the production process is a continuous line or a batch. Many floor plans contain the footmarks of installed machinery so that fire and safety officials can respond effectively to calls. From this information you may be able to determine the number of production lines, their capacity, and the room available for expansion. An experienced engineer can work out many production costs based on such information. Also take a look at any building permits on file, which can show additions and other changes to the building, such as drainage and air-conditioning lines; call the subcontractors and talk with them about what's inside the plant.

Inspect town permits for equipment.

Companies must obtain permits from local authorities in order to install much of the heavy equipment in their plants. Permits detail critical information such as the energy consumed in using the equipment--useful data for figuring an important component of your competitor's cost structure. With the name of the equipment's manufacturer in hand, you can call for a list of the specs and ask critical questions that will throw light on the costs of production: How many employees does it take to operate the equipment? What is its operating efficiency and defect rate? What is the cost of servicing the equipment?

Inspect environmental permits and reports.

Various government agencies issue air and water permits and emissions inspection reports for specific factories--documents that specify the kind and quantity of pollutants released. A knowledgeable engineer can work backward from these figures to sketch out the production process, including the types and amounts of raw materials consumed in the plant. You can also get emissions reports from your state department of environmental resources or through the Envirofacts service of the federal Environmental Protection Agency at www.epa.gov/enviro. A private group, Environmental Protection, lists emissions for specific plants at www.scorecard.org.

Pull credit reports on your competitor.

Although credit reports focus on payment records and not operating expenses, they may still offer valuable information about a company's cost structure, including UCC reports and banking relationships. Dun & Bradstreet is a leading provider of credit reports, and some trade associations offer the service for their membership as well.

Plumb the depths of the voice-mail system.

Those infernal voice-mail systems with endless branching to departments and people can actually be helpful in assessing personnel costs. By following all the branches and stopping to talk to a few secretaries along the way, Fuld & Co. researchers have sometimes been able to construct an organizational chart of a competitor's office or plant--thereby enabling analysts to compare staffing levels and likely costs.

The brain-drain conundrum, or...how are my competitors managing to steal my best employees?

You certainly wouldn't mind if your weakest employees would leave you, but--just your luck--those are the folks who have signed on for life. What hurts is the loss of people with the skills and experience to build your company's future, people in whom you've invested time and money. But how do you prevent the defections of key people? You must understand how competitors woo your people away. Your intelligence assignment: Collect information about what your competitors offer in compensation, benefits, training, advancement opportunities, and support services.

Debrief your defecting employees.

This sounds obvious enough, but many corporate managers are too shocked, hurt, or angry--or just plain shortsighted--to pursue the easiest and, most likely, the most productive course. Departing employees typically give two weeks' notice, a big opportunity to wine and dine them to find out everything you can about the competition.

Use a city directory to find neighboring businesses.

A cousin of the old phone book, a city (or reverse) directory includes a street-by-street section that lists names and phone numbers for each address. Look up small service businesses--restaurants, dry cleaners, and drugstores, for example--on the streets near your target company. Give a call and talk to the proprietor, who probably hears about your target company through his customers. He may also be able to put you in touch with a few of them who are employees of that company and would be willing to talk. You can find a reverse directory at www.555-1212.com.

Go online for disclosure documents.

If your target is a public company, it must make regular filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filings contain financial statements and notes that provide details about salary and compensation, at least for the top executives. The company also must disclose information about stock options and deferred compensation. Among the most valuable documents are the 10-K, a comprehensive annual filing, and the prospectus, issued before the issuance of stock. Go to www.sec.gov.

Find people to interview.

You need to talk with people who know about compensation within your industry. How do you find them? There may be recruiters who try to fill jobs in your industry. The trade publications that cover your industry may have a section on people moving to new jobs; having just tested the market, these people should know what companies in your field offer. Search computerized databases such as Dialog and DowJones News Retrieval, using search terms that include the names of your chief competitors. You'll turn up names of new hires--or, possibly better, people who have just left. Once you get them on the phone, it's often best to start with general questions, especially on compensation. "We get solid numbers on compensation," says Marcia Crumley, a director of financial services practice at Fuld & Co. "We don't ask open-ended questions, such as 'how much?' They'll feel more comfortable with ranges rather than specific numbers." In addition to pay, she says, ask about hours, travel, and the intellectual challenge of the job.

Harvest information at trade shows.

All the intelligence you need is hanging there from the lowest branches. In addition to the product brochures, press releases, and new products on display, salespeople who love to talk crowd trade shows wall to wall. Since the salespeople are there to make deals--deals for which they are generously compensated--they exchange information as readily as they breathe. So don't just take your team to all the big trade shows for your industry; take them with specific intelligence objectives for each of them to meet. Make sure you have someone mixing at all the mixers, and take out suppliers and vendors for every meal. Bring your team together a couple of times a day to debrief, look at all the findings, and identify the kind of information you still need to collect.

Our competitors are winning too many accounts in head-to-head competition with our own sales force. How can we get better information about what they are offering?

If you know why competitors are beating you to many customers, you can adjust your own offering and win more accounts. To obtain that critical information, get on the phone with the customers themselves as well as third parties in a position to know: vendors, distributors, sales reps, and the like. Writers and editors at trade magazines may also give you some clues about how your competitor is positioning itself.

But read some of their articles before you call so you know where to start asking questions. "Many journalists have been willing to talk with us," says Parmelee Eastman, vice president of the technology and communications practice of Fuld & Co. "They frequently collect more information than they use in their articles." Your best source of information, however, may be your own salespeople; informal chats in your office and at the coffee machine aren't enough. Some examples:

Filing regular reports.

At the time they send in an order, or after they visit a customer, require salespeople to file intelligence they've collected along the way.

Meeting agendas.

The sharing of intelligence about how competitors position their products goes to the top of every meeting agenda. That makes it a priority inside the meeting--and outside as well, because salespeople will understand how important it is. Don't wait until everyone is tired and needs to get back to his office to get some work done.

Intelligence drops.

Since your salespeople probably spend a lot of time on the road, make it easy for them. Create a specific e-mail address to which they can send their information. In addition, create an electronic discussion board that enables your people to react to each other's intelligence postings. Otherwise, says Bulger, "people will collect information, store it on their desk, and nobody else will ever see it."

Incentives.

Some salespeople may resist taking time to post intelligence information. Give them rewards--cash or gifts--for contributing more than their share to the common good. In fact, no matter what intelligence challenge you're confronting--or are likely to find yourself confronting--it's smart to systematize the collection of information from your salespeople. Chances are you're not anywhere as effective as you could be at leveraging them as intelligence gatherers. "Make it part of a habit," says Fuld. "Give them as easy a mechanism as possible to collect information and pass it on." After all, you never know when you'll need it. Or why.