In a Part 1 of this post, I stated that engaging in competitive intelligence is not the same as, or synonymous with, engaging in economic or industrial espionage or the misappropriation of trade secrets. That is, gathering competitive intelligence should not involve the intentional gathering of competitor’s confidential information or trade secrets. To the extent that confidential information or trade secrets are obtained, a firm should only utilize such intelligence if they were not obtained by theft, misrepresentation or deception.
I also mentioned that, as a relatively new discipline, there are few standards for competitive intelligence professionals to follow. Well, here are some “do’s” and don’ts”:
Do’s:
- Publicly available information may be freely gathered using any channels through which it is offered to the public.
- Competitive intelligence professionals should examine published information sources, conduct interviews, and use other legal and ethical methods to collect competitive intelligence information, using deductive reasoning to fill in any gaps in such information to create an analysis of a competitor’s product or marketing strategy.
- Competitive intelligence professionals can contact competitors directly to obtain publicly-available information.
- Competitive information disclosed to a firm or its agents can be used for the benefit of the firm if the information is not subject to a restriction of confidentiality or is a trade secret.
- Contractors employed by a firm to collect competitive information must accurately identify themselves, stating their name and the name of their company. However, unless the firm otherwise agrees, the contractors do not need to identify the firm by name, even if the subject requests the name of the contractor’s client.
- Competitive intelligence professionals should attempt to make contact at the manager level or above, and should not contact lower level employees of an organization.
Don’ts:
- Competitive intelligence professionals should never purposefully seek to obtain the trade secrets or non-public/competitively sensitive information of other companies.
- Competitive intelligence professionals should never attempt to induce a third party to violate their confidentiality obligations to another party.
- Direct contact with a competitor for the purpose of competitive intelligence activities should be avoided.
- If a vendor performs work for a competitor, any information obtained as a result of such engagement of the vendor should not be shared with your firm or used by such vendor on your firm’s behalf without authorization from such competitor, except for general “know-how,” skills or industry knowledge.
- Former employees of a competitor now working for your firm, or current or former employees of a competitor who have a personal relationship with one of your firm’s (or its third-party vendor’s) employees should not be exploited in order to obtain information about the competitor.
- Employees (current and former) have a duty to their employer not to disclose confidential information or trade secrets they received during their employment.
- Employees and third party vendors conducting competitive intelligence gathering on behalf of your firm should not misrepresent their identity or intent in gathering competitive intelligence information.
- Misrepresentation of one’s identity and misrepresentation of intent are unethical and improper means of gathering competitive sensitive information and can interfere with an employee’s duty to their employer.
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