In the United States, anyone who has the urge can become a private sector intelligence professional merely by printing up a card and looking for work. There are no licenses or standardized testing requirements, and no background in intelligence work is required. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most of the people in the business intelligence world have little governmental intelligence experience. Only recently has there been a serious movement to certify private sector intelligence professionals, but certification is not yet widespread.

In the US security sector, however, the requirements for becoming a security professional are much more stringent. Professionals have to acquire credentials as Certified Protection Personnel (CPP), administered by the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS). The ASIS organizes training courses and testing around the country, and practically anyone who has reached the management level in industrial or business security has already been certified. Given the security problems that have surfaced in government in recent years, the types of training used in the private sector might also be useful to government security personnel.

Anyone who has ever worked in governmental intelligence, at least in the United States, has been taught a theoretical model called the Intelligence Cycle. Policy officials begin the Intelligence Cycle by informing intelligence managers what they want to know and laying out their specific requirements. These requirements then drive the second step, the collection of data. Analysts evaluate data and judge the likely course of events. The conclusions are then sent back to the policy officials who set the original requirements so that they can take action or make policy decisions. Although the Intelligence Cycle may not be an accurate model for the way intelligence works in government, it does create a basis for understanding the way intelligence operates in the private sector.

In private industry, executives drive the intelligence process more directly than in government. Although they may not provide specific collection requirements, they usually play a much greater role in defining intelligence projects. There is significantly more communication and feedback between intelligence consumers and managers in the private sector, as the intelligence professionals work to ensure that they are going to deliver the product the consumer will pay for. Does intelligence in the private sector drive the decision-making process? It is hard to tell, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it does to a much greater degree than in government, where intelligence analysts are not supposed to make or even hint at policy. In the private sector, however, decision makers usually want advice; since they are paying for it, they get it.

Competition and Planning

There are two major areas in the private sector where the intelligence collection and analysis process are significant. The first might be called marketplace intelligence, or competitive intelligence. Marketplace intelligence has received attention in the past few years because of a drive by an organization called the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) to push private industry to adopt intelligence as part of the business process. If the marketplace is a battlefield, as some theoreticians claim, then competitive intelligence ought to play the same role in business as it does in warfare. It ought to be used to know one’s enemy—or competitor—and to play a role in defeating him.

The second area where the collection-analysis process is critical is in strategic planning, especially in international business—a subject that has received relatively little attention from the media or academics. There is a very busy network of professionals, many of them former governmental intelligence professionals, involved in this activity, and they are likely content to escape the notice of the press. They are engaged in what is usually termed political risk analysis, trying to provide information and advice to investors considering investments or starting businesses abroad. This is particularly important in dealing with developing countries and in other areas where conducting business may hold special dangers.

Interestingly, the United States has taken two distinct positions on private sector intelligence. With regard to marketplace intelligence, the US government has often said that it will not use its intelligence services to gather information on foreign firms to make US businesses more competitive. This stands in stark contrast to the French, who have confirmed that they do spy on foreign firms to benefit domestic industries. Other countries who carry out industrial espionage include Japan, South Korea, China, and Israel.

In the field of risk analysis, the US government has taken a different approach. The US Departments of State and Commerce have both encouraged US business investment abroad and are willing to provide intelligence data to potential investors and even insurance to minimize the risk. However, this has not put risk analysts out of business. Many business investors do not trust the government’s data and do not want the government to know their plans. As a result, they prefer to deal quietly with private intelligence experts.

Although the United States has pledged not to use its intelligence services to support US industries, it has agreed to use its intelligence resources defensively in detecting evidence of unfair trade practices or foreign industrial espionage. Government operatives claim that US private industry cannot defend itself against industrial espionage carried out by foreign intelligence services because these services are too clever, too sophisticated, and too well equipped to be stopped by industrial security units. Is this true? The evidence is mixed, to be sure, but seems to suggest that private industry is doing better defending against industrial espionage than the government thinks.

There is also the matter of private individuals who engage in spying for one company against another. A growing number of cases illustrates this kind of industrial espionage, including the General Motors executive who defected to Volkswagen, taking GM trade secrets with him, and the food service worker at Mastercard who tried to sell the credit card company’s proprietary data to Visa. Much of this information has surfaced because of lawsuits or prosecutions under industrial espionage laws.

Security Complications

Security in private industry is generally more complex than in government. US security agencies, including both intelligence services and operational elements of the executive departments—Defense, Justice, Energy, and State, for example—have to protect property, personnel, and operational data, but they are dealing with activities that are remarkably similar. In private industry, businesses are so varied that a number of security techniques must be developed and applied. What works for a manufacturing plant or a software developer may be totally inappropriate for a hotel or a hospital.