Competitive Intelligence and Economic or Industrial Espionage
'Competitive intelligence' describes the legal and ethical activity of systematically gathering, analyzing and managing information on industrial competitors. It may include activities such as examining newspaper articles, corporate publications, websites, patent filings, specialised databases, information at trade shows and the like to determine information on a corporation. The compilation of these crucial elements is sometimes termed CIS or CRS, a Competitive Intelligence Solution or Competitive Response Solution. With its roots in market research, 'competitive intelligence' has been described as the 'application of principles and practices from military and national intelligence to the domain of global business'; it is the business equivalent of open-source intelligence.
The difference between competitive intelligence and economic or industrial espionage is not clear; one needs to understand the legal basics to recognize how to draw the line between the two. Others maintain it is sometimes quite difficult to tell the difference between legal and illegal methods, especially if considers the ethical side of information gathering, making the border even more blurred and elusive of definition.
Read more about this topic: Industrial Espionage
Famous quotes containing the words competitive, intelligence, economic, industrial and/or espionage:
“How deep is our desire to do better than our mothers—to bring daughters into adulthood strong and fierce yet loving and gentle, adventurous and competitive but still nurturing and friendly, sweet yet sharp. We know as working women that we can’t quite have it all, but that hasn’t stopped us from wanting it all for them.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)
“Really to succeed, we must give; of our souls to the soulless, of our love to the lonely, of our intelligence to the dull. Business is quite as much a process of giving as it is of getting.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)
“Our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far- reaching in purpose.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilisation. It’s a lout’s game.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)