Competitive Intelligence versus Industrial Espionage Competitive Intelligencedescribes 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. It isnt a recent concept as during the intense competition between England and France in the 17th century, Louis XIV was very keen to stop rival England learning about French manufactural secrets. But when the Huguenots fled persecution, they took many secrets with them to the Netherlands and England. So What is the The difference between competitive intelligence and economic or industrial espionage? The difference is clear as IE is gathering informations in ways that are illicit. For instance there is case of an engineer from the Far East visiting an engineering firm. He was seen frequently bending down to tie the laces of his shoes. In fact, it was a ruse. He had an extraordinary long tie with a sticky tape on the end. When he bent down the sticky tape picked up tiny scraps of metal laying on the floor. These tiny scraps will be analyzed by the rival firm. Or the case of a lady who was about to fly out the US when customs officers at airport carried out a random check on her bags. They found she was carrying over 1000 confidential papers from a US electronics group she was working for. The company claimed that the Research and Development cost and the informations she was carrying exceeded 600 millions $. In addition, the company would have lost substantial revenues if the contents of the documents would have been made public. Industrial Espionage is often carried up by the company own employees. Many cases of IE involve individuals who are motivated by ideology, money, ego or the desire to take revenge. If the company suspects a particular employee then it has to use discrete surveillance. For example companies may use new devices easily available on the market to spy on their suspected employees. For instance there exists what looks like an adaptor plug but indeed it has a mobile telephone incorporated in it together with a microphone. It works like a cell phone. You can ring it up wherever you are in the world and listen to the conversation in the room where the plug is fitted. However, this raise a moral issue as the border line with violating human rights is very thin. Another issue is that its difficult for companies to control their employees who switch jobs as they are often taking secrets with them for the new employer. And obviously the more employees turnover you have, the greater the risk of this happening. Another headache for companies is Industrial Cyber Espionage. All nations are facing it. Last year Google was victim of a sophisticated hacking attack and it discovered as more than hundred other companies like Symantec and Adobe. The objective was to steal intellectual properties including software codes and chip design. With globalization and open wide web, IE is becoming increasingly frequent as the competition is rude between companies. The more competition there is the more IE develops. It is estimated that American businesses loose between 100 billions and 200 billions dollars a year because of IE. As for the solutions for companies to protect themselves from competitors stealing their secrets, one way is to minimize the possibility of leaks. Another approach is to consider that a company shouldnt waste too much of its time protecting its secrets but just try to be innovative and faster than its competitors. This is in particular what Japanese companies are doing. They are betting on innovations and for this reason they invest huge money in Research and Development. The R&D investment is close to 4% of its GDP(gross domestic product ou PIB en franais) which is the highest among industrial nations.