International corporations are prepared to spend huge sums of money just to discover what and when their competitor’s next product launch will be. The motivating factor being that potentially billions of pounds of revenue can exist in a commercial market if you can be the first company to establish ‘dominant market-share’ with a new product. Good information can make the difference between success and failure to any business.
Competitive Intelligence
Any successful business has to have at least one eye on the activities of their competitors. One method of achieving this is by using ‘competitive intelligence’. This is a legal and ethical method of systematically gathering, analysing and managing information on commercial competitors and it involves gathering information from public (open) sources and may include activities such as examining newspaper articles, corporate publications, websites, patent filings, specialised databases, information at trade events etc to obtain useable information on a competitor. Competitive intelligence has its roots in market research, but it essentially applies the same principles and practices as military or national intelligence; albeit to the national and global business market.
Industrial Espionage
Like competitor intelligence, the purpose of industrial espionage is to ‘acquire’ knowledge about a commercial organisation. The difference is the type of information acquired and the methods used to gather it. This could include acquiring intellectual property, such as information on industrial manufacture, ideas, techniques and processes, recipes and formulas. It could also include appropriation of proprietary or operational information, i.e. customer data, pricing, sales, marketing, research and development, policies, prospective bids, planning or marketing strategies or the changing compositions and locations of production.
It may describe activities such as covert infiltration in the form of burglary and theft of trade secrets. Bribery of an employee or a person with legitimate and uncontrolled access to the target organisation is also a common method as is blackmail and electronic surveillance (bugging).
If a trade secret is stolen, the competitive playing field is somewhat levelled or even tipped in favour of a commercial competitor. Although much information-gathering is accomplished legally via competitive intelligence, at times some corporations may feel the best way to get information is to take it by ‘any means’. Industrial espionage can be a real threat to any business whose livelihood depends on information.
The difference between competitor intelligence and industrial espionage is generally clear and depends heavily on the methods used to acquire information; covert infiltration into an organisation with a view of stealing information is most definitely industrial espionage and most right thinking organisations will steer clear of that kind of information acquisition activity. However, the mobile revolution has changed the ‘game’ somewhat. If you conduct business in inappropriate places, then expect somebody to listen in on what is taking place.
If you work on company documents in a public place then you must expect that someone, possibly a competitor or their ‘agent’, may well be paying attention by looking over your shoulder at your company’s secrets or its commercially sensitive information. Carrying out business in public makes surveillance of your activities legal, ethical and so much easier than it used to be. If the person sitting at the next table in a restaurant supplies what he sees and hears to a competitor, you cannot possibly complain as you gave away the information, and a competitor will most definitely use it to their advantage.
Source: Ian Harm - www.iacinvestigations.co.uk
