WhyCI Corporate Warfare Private Limited – The Intelligence Co. – The Intelligence Co.
How Competitor Sensitive Your Organization Is?
The first time one hears the term ‘Counterintelligence’ (CI), it stirs up a flurry of confused thoughts in one's mind and leaves one wondering what in the world does CI it mean? CI is still not a familiar term with most businesses. Even if companies are familiar with CI, they ignore the full value of its importance. Often if attempts are made to explain the vital reach that CI has in helping a company steer more rapidly toward its goals, some minds respond arrogantly with a “we know everything about threats we face” response.
Many senior executives of the organizations I have met over last decade at conferences and exhibitions have not heard of the term "Counterintelligence" and whoever has heard are of the impression that it has something to do with military or law enforcement agencies.
Some players maintain that they have been successful for all these years without CI, so why would they need it now?” Companies such as these become complacent and therein lies the danger. Most companies have lost out their prime positions in markets and subsequently their customers due to their complacency, arrogant attitude and lack of Counterintelligence based strategies.
I want to share one example with you.
One day, the after-shave lotion company based out of India received a phone call in the evening, just before the end of the day. The call was from an “informer” of the company, The message was straight: One competitor is going to launch the after-shave lotion in the market the day after tomorrow.
The company had little time to act. The company called an emergency meeting and they took a decision. They sent out a message to all distributors across India and asked them to put a sign-board at the supermarkets and everywhere: “Buy one Get one FREE”! it sounds just like any other marketing or advertising strategy but it was a very wise move. We use few drops of after-shave lotion, so anyway it lasts longer. Now, what if you get the best quality product from the best company and that too one FREE? you would obviously go for it. With the implementation of this scheme, the rival company has to postpone the launch by a month. That gives an existing company some time to find out more about the competitors – their marketing strategy, production, staff and everything.
The informer in the above example had clearly breached the security of the rival company through any means. So, the question here is: How competitor sensitive your organization is? Are your employees trained to thwart any such attack? Your competitors are after you in this hyper-competitive world. They are watching you. They target through all the means to gather information about your organization. The onus is on the top management on how to train employees in order to thwart any such attacks and keep attackers at bay.
Always remember that Counterintelligence helps companies become pro-active and not reactive to threats. Very few organizations across the globe provide formal training to its employees on counterintelligence mainly because either they lack skills to train their employees or they do not give importance to it.
The main objective of Counterintelligence is to protect information from those who are not authorised to receive it as well as to mitigate potential threats. It should not only protect against aggressive and illegal information gathering (corporate espionage) but also against open and legal information gathering process that can harm a company.
Stay alert and stay vigilant!