Competitive Intelligence – Save Yourself from the Cloak and Dagger

Today, I’m going to stray from the usual Primary Intelligence Competitive Intelligence thoughts to make a point about counterintelligence. Your company has to be prepared for major and minor efforts to infiltrate your confidential and proprietary information.

I’ll start with a story and follow-up comment:

"In the spring of 2005, Guy Enright, an accountant at KPMG Financial Advisory Services Ltd. in Bermuda, got a call from a man identifying himself in a crisp British accent as Nick Hamilton. Hamilton said he needed to see Enright about matters of utmost importance.

"Over the course of two meetings, Hamilton led Enright to believe he was a British intelligence officer, according to a person familiar with the encounters. He told Enright he wanted information about a KPMG project that Hamilton said had national security implications for Britain. Soon, Enright, who was born in Britain, was depositing confidential audit documents in plastic containers at drop-off points designated by Hamilton.

"But Nick Hamilton was not an agent of Her Majesty's secret service, and the documents never found their way to the British government..." (Continue Reading the Article)

Den Taylor, Strategic Insights, added his comments to the article:

"As a strategic intelligence professional, I am often asked to provide counter-intelligence counsel to deal with similar circumstances. What is invariably found in such cases is in today's global economy, intelligence gathering by any means is a simple fact of life.

"Unfortunately, many organizations do not convey this to their employees, making them easy prey to the entreaties of individuals utilizing simple forms of pretext. Interestingly, we have found that dealing with this problem is relatively simple.

"We recommend that clients conduct periodic education programs that cover the means by which outsiders gather intelligence. Such programs are often coupled with designating a knowledgeable intelligence person who can provide advice on how best to deal with unsolicited contacts. Although taking this step does not guarantee that valuable internal intelligence is never compromised, it does make the pursuit of such information much more difficult."

As a competitive intelligence professional, have you thought about educating your company on the tactics employed by your competitors? You can start by discussion your standard techniques for data collection and branch out into other possible areas of espionage. Your company’s employees don’t have to be experts on espionage. They just have to be able to sense suspicious activity and notify the right people.

In short:

-Your company has to have a plan to combat espionage and potentially harmful intelligence efforts
-As a market, sales or competitive intelligence professional, you should have input into that plan, if you don’t manage it outright.
-A list of suspicious activities needs to be prepared and distributed
-Your employees need to know how to handle a suspicious call or activity. Do they escalate it to a manager or contact your department?
-Be ready to prosecute. Illegal activity needs to be punished. (Your legal department should get a kick out of this)

If you have ideas or questions, let’s chat. (cdalley@primary-intel.com, 801-838-9600 x5050)