Question

Topic: Student Questions

How Do People Plan Espionage On Fmcg Companies

Posted by Anonymous on 5/26/2005 at 11:58 AM ET 25 Points
I am doing a information warfare assignment and i want to prepare a plan to carry out espionage on my competitor company, i have generally picked a fmcg company and wanted to know how to carry out espionage in legals ways.
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  • Posted on 5/31/2005 at 11:31 AM Author
    Well i know that espionage is illegal, but it has been given another name as competitve intelligence, which organization carry out to findout what their competitors are doing as P&G had. COKE AND PEPSI.. they all carry out business intelligence on each other.

    I wanted to know how to plan out strategy, as i have sum up some ideas like FMCG companies follow media, advertising agencies, suppliers distributors they can be resource for getting info about the competitors.

    now as one of the friend said about bloggs, it is generally true many employees are enthusitatic and open up their brand plans in parties which help the competitors to get info.

    So i guess these ways r not illegal in any respect, as dumpster diving is given legal by supreme court as the garbage is out of the office, it is legal that u can pick it up.

    Even u can buy hard disk in auntion which are not usually wiped out properly. so u can get info from there as well.

    well i wanted some1 to help in a way to plan a strategy on specific company.
    well i hope my knowledge will help you people as well. i wanted to know as strategy planning is made on SWOT basis which is strenght weakness opportunities threats, i want to make a plan in that sort of manner.
    thanks everyone
  • Posted by Mushfique Manzoor on 6/6/2005 at 4:07 AM Accepted
    jawad

    you can gather information from a lot of source on a competing company. the easiest way is from Marketing Research firms.

    1. you can ask a research company to undertake research activities in which they will collect information about your competitor as well as your company information. usually these information provide you a direction, a hunch of competitors next action.

    2. another source is Media Tracking companies. they track the various media expenses your competitors incur and they will sell those data to you. but then again the actuall amount expended by competition is not likely to match the figure provided Media trackers, as competition can always negotiate with vendors on price while the media tracker calculates on the basis of current-market price.

    3. you can also use your advertising agency to collect information on your competitor. your agency can always collect information from the agency that handles your competition account. then again the you will not get accurate information, but some trends and indications.

    4. if any person who has access to information on his/her company makes a floor-crossing to your company you will get some accurate information, but that accuracy is limited for a certain time, as the company will definitely change its policy/information whatsoever so that you cant take advantage of this floor-crossing.

    5. yes, as you have mentioned blogs and other informal discussions, social gathering can be source of information on competition, but then again none can give you 100% accuracy on any information.

    i hope you understand, that its almost impossible to get accurate information, like Oleg Penkovsky gave to Kennedy administration during the Cuban Missile Crises.

    if you want that kind of accurate information, then you gotta develop your Market Research and Intelligence team in the line of CIA or french DSE. the outcome is your Penkovsky getting caught and your company facing Lawsuits.

    btw, the french intelligence agency DSE has recently admitted that they have been doing industrial espionage against US companies for a long time. and US is witch-hunting. so Be Careful before you trade this path.

    good luck!!
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