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Competitive Intelligence, Corporate Security and the War on Terrorism

Counterterrorism measures also play a role in intellectual property theft and other security steps taken by corporate America.

By John J. McGonagle and Carolyn M. Vella, The Helicon Group

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This funding change may have profound implications for competitive intelligence. First, providing additional funds and responsibility to those in corporate security will eventually result in corporate security activities making some forms of competitive intelligence that much more difficult, or even impossible. This is not to say corporate security will actually target competitive intelligence, although it should.

And corporate security units may eventually become sensitive to the existence of threats from competitive intelligence; having seen their mandate increased, they will continue to increase their activities by moving into the area of defending against competitive intelligence.

Regardless of which way this works, more aggressive corporate security practices will result in making the collection of any raw data, whether primary or secondary, more difficult in the future. Oddly enough, there is little evidence to indicate that the terrorists most feared by businesses as a threat to their facilities utilize sophisticated data-gathering channels. Security managers will move to control the release of the information that their company can control, to limit the distribution of materials that it produces, and to prevent access to information and facilities. That may not be an effective antiterrorist strategy, but it may well be, by accident, an effective anti-competitive intelligence strategy.

On the other hand, increased spending on corporate security and counterterrorism may also benefit competitive intelligence professionals. Consider these possibilities, for example:

• Government research and development of mapping technology, coupled with improvements in satellite surveillance, make it possible for business intelligence analysts to gain access to highly detailed pictures of a target facility in real time and at little or no cost.
• Companies come to realize that the tools and techniques of competitive intelligence can supplement activities in areas ranging from facility protection to tracking counterfeiting, thus opening new career opportunities for internal competitive intelligence staff.

The impact of this is similar to that caused by a ramping up of activity by security departments. However, it is likely to ebb and flow.

For example, several years ago, a client wanted information about the production capacity of a plant owned and managed by a competitor. The client had done a very good background research assessment of what could be found on the Internet and from industry print resources. From that, the client found out the nature of the product produced at this plant and the kind of specialized equipment used, and identified the plant's ability to shift among various types of products. However, what was lacking was a real in-depth assessment of the size of the plant, and the number of pieces of large manufacturing equipment there, both critical to creating a profile of the plant's current active capacity.

In this case, we went to the township where the plant was located, specifically to the office that housed local zoning and building code enforcement records. Our hope was that the facility's plans for expansion and renovation and the like, which had been filed there, would help us assess current conditions and the current manufacturing area in the facility itself.

The plant was located in a small, semi-rural community. It was more than likely the largest employer in the township, perhaps even in the county. When a representative of Helicon went to this office, it was small enough that after he was given access to the plans on file, he reviewed them at a worktable in the middle of the office. As requested by the township, he signed his name in the public records log, identified his company—although that was not required by state law—and proceeded to evaluate the plans.

Another individual on the assignment attempted to call several people within the plant. The background research by the client had led us to identify names of individuals, such as the plant manager, so an effort was made to elicit additional information on the plant.

About 24 hours later we received a call from an individual with the parent company. The parent had found out "about our interest" in the plant and was very upset. We pointed out that, in fact, both individuals had left their names and clearly identified themselves in all situations. Otherwise the company would have had no way of contacting us to express its concern!

What happened was probably not that the individuals at the plant reported the relatively innocuous calls to headquarters, but rather that someone in the township had a relative or friend working in the plant. That person probably wondered why someone from outside that area was so interested in the plans of the facility and called someone, which ultimately resulted in an inquiry made by headquarters of the small number of people at the plant as to whether they had been contacted by Helicon. The answer was yes. About half of the key people in the plant in fact had been approached by Helicon, but had provided no data of value.

In our experience, the calls that were being made to elicit information from the plant personnel would not normally have triggered an inquiry like this. Rather, it was the curiosity of an individual in the township about the request to see a public record about a major industrial facility that triggered a defensive response. In more than 25 years of conducting competitive research, this is the only case we can recall where the local government gatekeeper, as it were, alerted a target of our interest.

We are virtually certain that this will not be the last such event. We absolutely believe that the appropriate caution that has been engendered among Americans, and others around the world, has already had an impact on the competitive intelligence process. While the caution evidenced will not always be at the highest level, it is our opinion that after every actual or threatened terrorist event somewhere in the world this kind of sensitivity will increase, even if for only a short time.

 

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