ethics in news business corporate espionage

#ETHICS IN NEWS BUSINESS CORPORATE ESPIONAGE CODE#

As long as you gain information with a clear conscience while following the law, there is nothing unethical or unlawful about it. IT’S SIMPLEĭon’t let the fear of corporate espionage or unethical activity stand in your way. Doing an extensive analysis of your competitors is (or at least should be) part of every business’s strategy. However, when you’re trying to understand key influencers or find information about investors, founders or employees, you need to be more careful. Most information within a competitive analysis, will of course be about your competitor. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) might also affect your ability to gain information. Business espionage can include both sectors when the government is directly involved in the business sector, and, again, this happens in many places around the world. Blackmail, bribery and patent infringement also fall under corporate espionage. The terms industrial or corporate espionage are more often more intra-national and occur between companies or corporations who are competitors.

The aforementioned are, of course, not the only illegal practices.

Instead, research to find ways to better your own corporation.

Researching about your rival with the intention of tarnishing their reputation based on the knowledge you have about them isn’t a cool practice.

Unauthorized hacking into another corporation’s computer system is nothing but espionage and they do not conform to competitive analysis ethics.

Pretending to be a staff and stealing confidential information is undoubtedly espionage.

This is when you decide to get your rivals’ information without granted or public access.

This brings us into what corporate espionage is: it is simply the illegal side of competitive intelligence.

#ETHICS IN NEWS BUSINESS CORPORATE ESPIONAGE CODE#

All this has made it easier to conduct competitive analysis.ĬOLLECTING INFORMATION ≠ CORPORATE ESPIONAGEĪs a competitive intelligence professional or a business trying to perform an ethical competitive intelligence, you can follow a strict code of ethics formulated by the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) lest you fall into performing the dark side of competitive intelligence, which is known as corporate espionage. To gain more customers, companies publish a lot of information on the Internet and even send out regular press releases. But today, open company data, available online for everyone, has broken down many barriers. In the past, gathering information about a company's rival was difficult and often led to illegal actions. Today, a competitive analysis has never been easier or more important. Many companies have been able to do better and come up with creative and innovative plans, products and services by learning about their competitors' next step and their business techniques. In today's market, being one step ahead of your competitors can have a major impact on your company's bottom line. Some call it competitive analysis, business intelligence, corporate intelligence or even industry intelligence. So what is competitive intelligence if it is essential to your business? It is essentially the identification, collection and 'ethical' analysis of your company's competitors. GAINING COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE IS EASIER THAN EVER

Ethics in news business corporate espionage