Posts Tagged ‘Corporate Risks’
1st Principle
CORPORATE STRATEGY
Corporate Strategy Competitive Intelligence Cycle
Planning
Collection
Analysis
Dissemination
Key Intelligence Topics for Corporate Strategy decision making
I. Assessment of Strategies
A. Focused Differentiation
B. Best Cost
C. Differentiation
D. Low Cost
E. Focused Low Cost
F. Market Skimming
G. Market Penetration
H. Related Diversification
I. Unrelated Diversification
J. Backward Integration
K. Forward Integration
L. Horizontal Integration
II. Consumer Perceptions
A. Negative Moment of Truth
B. Positive Moment of Truth
C. Usage
D. Attitude
E. Image
F. Market Segmentation
G. Customer Satisfaction
H. Brand Recall
I. Purchase Decision
J. Brand Association
K. Value Creation
L. Lifestyle
M. Personality
N. Product Attributes
O. Country of Origin
III. Current Operations
A. Value Chain Analysis
B. Benchmarking Analysis
C. Five Force Analysis
D. Brick & Click Strategy
IV. Competitor Capabilities
A. OODA Loop
B. Offensive Maneuvers
C. Defensive Maneuvers
D. Flanking Maneuvers
E. Guerilla Maneuvers
V. Evaluation of Market Life Cycle
A. Market Crystallization
B. Market Expansion
C. Market Fragmentation
D. Market Consolidation
E. Market Dissolution
VI. Service Triangle Interplay
A. Service Strategy
B. Systems & Procedures
C. People of the Organization
D. Service Strategy – Customer – People of the Organization
E. Systems & Procedures – Customer – People of the Organization
F. Systems & Procedures – Customer – Service Strategy
G. Service Strategy – Systems & Procedures – People of the Organization
Corporate Strategy Six Sigma Improvement Approach cycle for Information Analysis
Define
Measure
Analyze
Improve
Control
Corporate Strategy 5S cycle of “Continuous Improvement” for Analysis of Information
Sort
Set in order
Shine
Standardize
Sustain
Corporate Strategy “8 D” cycle of Problem Solving Approach for Analysis of Information
Team effort
Describe the problem
Implement and verify short term corrective action
Define and verify root causes
Verify corrective action
Prevent reoccurrence
Motivate your team
FMEA Analysis for Corporate Strategy
Severity
Occurrence
Detection
RPN
Fault Tree Analysis for Corporate Strategy
Reliability Analysis
Safety Analysis
BUSINESS STRATEGY
Business Strategy Competitive Intelligence Cycle
Planning
Collection
Analysis
Dissemination
Key Intelligence Topics for Business Strategy decision making
I. Assessment of Strategies
A. Focused Differentiation
B. Best Cost
C. Differentiation
D. Low Cost
E. Focused Low Cost
F. Market Skimming
G. Market Penetration
H. Related Diversification
I. Unrelated Diversification
J. Backward Integration
K. Forward Integration
L. Horizontal Integration
II. Consumer Perceptions
A. Negative Moment of Truth
B. Positive Moment of Truth
C. Usage
D. Attitude
E. Image
F. Market Segmentation
G. Customer Satisfaction
H. Brand Recall
I. Purchase Decision
J. Brand Association
K. Value Creation
L. Lifestyle
M. Personality
N. Product Attributes
O. Country of Origin
III. Current Operations
A. Value Chain Analysis
B. Benchmarking Analysis
C. Five Force Analysis
D. Brick & Click Strategy
IV. Competitor Capabilities
A. OODA Loop
B. Offensive Maneuvers
C. Defensive Maneuvers
D. Flanking Maneuvers
E. Guerilla Maneuvers
V. Evaluation of Market Life Cycle
A. Market Crystallization
B. Market Expansion
C. Market Fragmentation
D. Market Consolidation
E. Market Dissolution
VI. Service Triangle Interplay
A. Service Strategy
B. Systems & Procedures
C. People of the Organization
D. Service Strategy – Customer – People of the Organization
E. Systems & Procedures – Customer – People of the Organization
F. Systems & Procedures – Customer – Service Strategy
G. Service Strategy – Systems & Procedures – People of the Organization
Business Strategy Six Sigma cycle Analysis for Information
Define
Measure
Analyze
Improve
Control
Business Strategy 5S cycle of “Continuous Improvement” Analysis for Information
Sort
Set in order
Shine
Standardize
Sustain
Business Strategy “8 D” cycle of Problem Solving Approach for Analysis of Information
Team effort
Describe the problem
Implement and verify short term corrective action
Define and verify root causes
Verify corrective action
Prevent reoccurrence
Motivate your team
FMEA Analysis for Business Strategy
Severity
Occurrence
Detection
RPN
Fault Tree Analysis for Business Strategy
Reliability Analysis
Safety Analysis
FUNCTIONAL STRATEGY
Functional Strategy Competitive Intelligence Cycle
Planning
Collection
Analysis
Dissemination
Key Intelligence Topics for Functional Strategy decision making
1. Assessment of Strategies
A. Focused Differentiation
B. Best Cost
C. Differentiation
D. Low Cost
E. Focused Low Cost
F. Market Skimming
G. Market Penetration
H. Related Diversification
I. Unrelated Diversification
J. Backward Integration
K. Forward Integration
L. Horizontal Integration
II. Consumer Perceptions
A. Negative Moment of Truth
B. Positive Moment of Truth
C. Usage
D. Attitude
E. Image
F. Market Segmentation
G. Customer Satisfaction
H. Brand Recall
I. Purchase Decision
J. Brand Association
K. Value Creation
L. Lifestyle
M. Personality
N. Product Attributes
O. Country of Origin
III. Current Operations
A. Value Chain Analysis
B. Benchmarking Analysis
C. Five Force Analysis
D. Brick & Click Strategy
IV. Competitor Capabilities
A. OODA Loop
B. Offensive Maneuvers
C. Defensive Maneuvers
D. Flanking Maneuvers
E. Guerilla Maneuvers
V. Evaluation of Market Life Cycle
A. Market Crystallization
B. Market Expansion
C. Market Fragmentation
D. Market Consolidation
E. Market Dissolution
VI. Service Triangle Interplay
A. Service Strategy
B. Systems & Procedures
C. People of the Organization
D. Service Strategy – Customer – People of the Organization
E. Systems & Procedures – Customer – People of the Organization
F. Systems & Procedures – Customer – Service Strategy
G. Service Strategy – Systems & Procedures – People of the Organization
Functional Strategy Six Sigma cycle for Information Analysis
Define
Measure
Analyze
Improve
Control
Functional Strategy 5S cycle of “Continuous Improvement” for Analysis of Information
Sort
Set in order
Shine
Standardize
Sustain
Functional Strategy “8 D” cycle of Problem Solving Approach for Analysis of Information
Team effort
Describe the problem
Implement and verify short term corrective action
Define and verify root causes
Verify corrective action
Prevent reoccurrence
Motivate your team
FMEA Analysis for Functional Strategy
Severity
Occurrence
Detection
RPN
Fault Tree Analysis for Functional Strategy
Reliability Analysis
Safety Analysis
Information
Information is data joined in revealing ways. Information collection is a very important part of intelligence cycle.
Information can be collected through passive intelligence and semi active intelligence and active intelligence.
When we collect information, we need to evaluate sources of information. We need to list the sources we have found and type of information the source provides.
Collection of information results in using different kinds of sources and for this we need to classify sources and rate them. We need to understand whether the source provides facts or does the source provide information from experts who are sure of their facts or does the source just provides personal opinion. Classifying sources on the basis of whether it is a fact or authority or opinion or not verifiable sources helps you understand the authenticity of the information you have collected.
In planning stage when you work on key intelligence topics, you need to understand whether the information you require is available in passive intelligence or semi active intelligence or active intelligence. Now the sources that you have identified are they facts or expert information from experts or just a personal opinion. When you verify the information you need to segment the information as facts and authority and opinion and unconfirmed sources.
This is just the start of the information collection journey.
Five Force Analysis
Competitive intelligence involves monitoring the operating environment. We need to monitor the suppliers, customers, substitution effect, threat of new entrants and competitive rivalry in the market place.
What we need to understand that a supplier of today could become a parallel or latent or existing competitor tomorrow and if we are able to monitor suppliers we can anticipate whether they will be going in for related diversification or unrelated diversification or backward of forward integration for being competitive in the market place.
This we call early warning if we are able to detect much in advance. A supplier of yesterday could become a lateral competitor or parallel competitor or existing competitor of tomorrow.
We need to monitor the substitution effect ie the lateral competitors and parallel competitors who eat into our market share. Competitive intelligence helps us identify competitors who eat into the market share by offering substitution alternatives to customers. These competitors who are our parallel competitors of today could become existing competitors of tomorrow who by using related diversification could contest for the same market space.
Customers need to be monitored to work on customer acquisition and customer retention efforts. When we monitor our customers and competitors customers we are able to plan our customer acquisition and customer retention strategies. Inputs for creating a ladder of loyalty are generated here and we can move the existing customer to becoming a client and a client to becoming a supporter and a supporter to becoming an advocate of our products and services who by word of mouth publicity generate goodwill can create positive perception in the eyes of the target segment.
New entrants need to be monitored as they would compete with us for the market space.
Anew entrant could be a existing competitor who is using either low cost or best cost or differentiation or focused low cost or focused differentiation strategy to reposition in the market segment. On the other hand a new entrant could be a lateral competitor who enters into our market space through unrelated diversification or backward or forward integration or related diversification. Further a new entrant could be a parallel competitor who may become our existing competitor through related diversification or backward or forward integration.
Further we need to keep our eye on the ball and monitor our existing competitors who may be low cost option providers and now are considering differentiation or best cost strategy to enter into our market space.
The ability to anticipate competitor movement by understanding strategic options is another way to being competitive. An existing competitor may use strategic options such as low cost or differentiation or best cost or focused low cost or focused differentiation and effect our market share.
Further when we monitor the environment and analyze the information we are able to use role playing and scenarios to generate early warning.
In the weeks ahead, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People’s Republic of China will sign a nuclear cooperation agreement covering a host of areas which apparently are civilian in nature and are bound to have applications that may not be so civilian afterall. At the Nuclear Supplier’s Group meeting in New Zealand, China will be lobbying for Pakistan’s acceptance as a nation worthy of a Nuke deal. After being refused by Secretary Clinton, for a similar nuclear deal with the United States at par with India, Pakistan has sought the assistance of its all weather friend, China. There isnt much that the US can do, since the Pakistani leadership has communicated who its best friends and highest priorities are. Pakistan’s refusal to handover Dr A Q Khan for interrogation speaks of Pakistan’s resolve to go ahead with its nuclear ambitions. Despite Pakistan being the greatest proliferator of Nuke tech to states of concerns, it continues to remain a frontline ally in the war against terror. The Stingers meant for Soviet aircrafts were being fired at Indian Air force evicting terrorists out of its own territories.
Seoul and New Delhi have expressed concern over the Chinese facilitated missiles-for-nukes exchange between Pakistan and DPRK better known as North Korea. The military cooperation between Pakistan and PRC has assumed new dimesions with JF-17 fighters being inducted into the Pakistani Air Force,adding more muscle after the acquisition of Nuke capable F-16s. Not to mention, while the funds for the Pak nuke program have been primarily availed from the Saudis, there has been major weapons deals with Eastern Europe, especially the T-90 Tank from Ukraine rechristened as Al-Khalid.
But mind the fact that its not the conventional military might that Pakistan is a behemoth at. It is but the irregulars and non-uniform combat units that it has bred, in mainland Pakistan and in numerous parts of the globe that make Pakistan a deadly force to reckon with. Having multiplicity of Jehadi outfits that were hurting the erstwhile Soviets to present day NATO forces in Afghanistan and Indian Troops in Kashmir, Pakistan is a massive garrison of a non-uniformed yet highly trained combatants who can bring even a Superpower down to its knees. Its recent most achievement was the Siege of Mumbai, known as 26/11, by ten simple yet superbly trained youth in their twenties. Having received sophisticated comprehensive training from the Pak Naval Special Services Group on the lines of US Navy SEALs, an operation of such a calibre can put most uniformed amphibian special forces of the world to shame. If a Combat unit of ten mercenaries could wreck a havoc of such a degree, knowing the fact that Pakistan has raised a force of hundreds of thousands of such deadly fighting force is a nightmare come true. Adding to that, there are invisible armies of western raised and educated cadre that have taken the threat levels to a new High. Faisal Shehzad, a US national of Pak origin nearly managed to gutt the Time square, had it not been for the quick response of an alert passer by. Besides having strong family and social contacts in the Pak Air force & Army, Faisal had been heavily motivated into Jehadi fervour by his yet to be traced mentors. The British national Omar Saeed Sheikh, an LSE grad who has been acquitted for Daniel Pearl beheading, funding 9/11 and kidnapping and murder of UK & US citizens in India, continues to lie low under the custody of the Pakistani security agencies. He has been amongst the best assets for the Pak ISI and Army, and although sentenced to death, he continues to live at an unknown location. The deadliest so far has been David Coleman Headley alias Daood Sayed Gilani who had masterminded 26/11 and is suspected to be a triple agent currently under the custody of US Homeland security. Not only did he manage to stay in Chabad house masquerading as a Jew, he also managed to befriend celebrities and conducted a reconnaissance of targets in India and Europe.
The startling truth is that, Pakistan has truly shifted from an India-centric strategy to a global combat capability. Despite overtly supporting the US in its war against terror, the key figures of Taliban have been shielded, bearing in mind, once the NATO troops exit Afghanistan, the strategic depth Pak Army and ISI once had in the Afghan region, can be re-established.
Every time, a US statesman pressurises Pak for action against terrorist groups, Pakistan threatens with suicide thus asking for greater economic assistance bundled with military hardware to achieve parity with India. Even if one analyses the patterns of suicide bombings that have occured in Pakistan in the recent times, it points to a focussed and precise targetting of moderate factions within the civilian as well as military setup of the state. Skeptics have been predicting an implosion of Pakistan into bits and pieces based on sectarian and regional issues. However, the findings have another story to tell. Pakistani Army is gaining muscle and so are the extremists that Pakistani army nutures as its frontline force. The Wahabi wave that started from Saudi has found its takers in Pakistan, with a new Sunni world order looking upto Saudi as the ideological head, while Pakistan being the military torchbearer for the ‘crusade’ that is underway.
When IC-814 hijacking of the Indian Airliner happened in 1999, and there were terrorists released in lieu of the lives of passengers, it was an early warning signal for the West and the free world countries of a threat on its way. Today, the China-Pakistan-Saudi nexus continues to encircle India and keep US & allies engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, while building their own Politico-Eco-Military might. Its wake up time for the nations of the free world to pre-empt a caught-by-surprise event, that is waiting to happen in a matter of time. As they say, to be fore-warned, is to be fore-armed, but what does the little John do, if he never raised the alarm. Its time, someone did the needful of ringing the bell.
EARLY WARNING ON INSURGENCY – WHAT INDIAN GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND TO MITIGATE RISKS WHICH CREATE CORPORATE RISKS FOR FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN INDIA.
Some believe that insurgency is a military problem while others believe that insurgency is the result of outside interference while some others believe that insurgency is caused by poverty.
For this we need to understand the socio, political and economic conditions that are exploited by vested interests. The breeding ground for insurgency could be because of either or some or all the factors. It could be because of breakdown of traditional social organizations and customs because of cross cultural influences or because of rapid improvement in social, economic and political conditions or Urbanization or Industrialization or lets say in the case of India, vacuum created by the departure of a colonial power or it could be because of Indian government corruption, ineptitude or tyranny or due to political instability in the centre as well as state governments, further widespread unemployment and underemployment and poverty or deep social and economic divisions based on caste and class divide.
The root cause of insurgency which the government needs to understand is the intolerable inconsistency between that which people think that they have a right to accept and which they estimate they realistically are capable of attaining.
The gap which is created between value expectations and value capabilities is called relative deprivation. In India this is especially heightened by the great class and caste and religious divide.
Out of the frustration in the local population between that which people think that they have a right to accept and which they estimate they realistically are capable of attaining resulting in a gap called perceived relative deprivation.
Because of Indian government corruption and ineptitude and due to political instability in the centre as well as state governments in not being able to address widespread unemployment and underemployment and poverty results in deep social and economic divisions based on caste and class divide.
Out of this arise issues. What are issues? Issues are points in argument. These are the questions that have not been addressed by the Indian government. These become the focal points of discontent and even insurgency.
What the government fails to understand is that these issues belong to certain groups and when these issues are not properly addressed because of government ineptitude or corruption that a certain sect of local population takes it upon themselves as to how these issues should be readdressed. Members of local population who realize that the government is incapable of addressing these issues take it upon themselves to affect the behavior of the local population by offering them utopia.
These insurgent leaders who advocate these issues become the rallying point for local population as the local population now starts to believe that which people think that they have a right to accept and which they estimate they realistically are capable of attaining resulting in a gap called perceived relative deprivation.
These issues advocated by groups become demands. Now if demands are properly addressed they result simply in the normal functioning of the political system. As it happens in India, issues which belong to groups which are inadequately addressed become demands which results in heightened perceived relative deprivation because of the frustration in the local population between that which people think that they have a right to accept and which they estimate they realistically are capable of attaining resulting in a gap called perceived relative deprivation.
The resulting frustration in the local population between that which people think that they have a right to accept and which they estimate they realistically are capable of attaining resulting in a gap called perceived relative deprivation represents potential for political violence.
As is the case of Indian political history there have been precedents that whenever local population resorts to political violence that it is only then that the government pays attention.
These issues belonging to groups advocated by influencers become demands and when these demands are not adequately addressed that have the potential for political violence develop legitimacy not in legal terms but on psychological terms result in popular support because of the frustration in the local population between that which people think that they have a right to accept and which they estimate they realistically are capable of attaining.
This results in directed focused political violence. This is where insurgent leadership takes over out of the frustration in the local population between that which people think that they have a right to accept and which they estimate they realistically are capable of attaining resulting in a gap called perceived relative deprivation which the insurgent leadership makes the local population understand that the issues which have not been addressed by the government belonging to certain groups and thereby gather popular support.
Then PSYOPS is used by insurgent leaders who use MICE and especially Ideology to create loyal cadres to seize political control.
What the government forgets is that the government has yet not been able to understand the coercive potential of insurgent leaders which is greater that the coercive potential of the government to make populations conform.
The insurgent leaders advocate their causes and win over local population and breaks the links that bind the people to the government. This is because the coercive potential of insurgents is greater and for this the insurgent leaders destroy the legitimacy of the local government and create legitimacy for their own leadership because of the frustration in the local population between that which people think that they have a right to accept and which they estimate they realistically are capable of attaining resulting in a gap called perceived relative deprivation.
The popular support to the insurgency happens because of Indian government corruption, ineptitude or tyranny or due to political instability in the centre as well as state governments, further widespread unemployment and underemployment and poverty or deep social and economic divisions based on caste and class divide.
Can Terrorists / Insurgents Breach Commonwealth Games 2010 Security in India?
There are 23 competitive venues, 40 training venues and International Broadcasting Centre.
There are 36 functional areas for which Volunteers will be hired and trained.
Each volunteer application will be screened by the Police. But does Police verification really screen anything beside antecedent verification?
There is a Low Probability x High Impact scenario where the terrorists / Insurgents may breach Commonwealth Games 2010 security wearing FAKE uniforms, they could be uniforms like:
1. Volunteer uniforms given to Commonwealth Games 2010 volunteers
2. Para Military uniforms
3. Rapid Action Force uniforms,
4. Police uniforms
How easy is it in India to counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs, leading fashion brands apparel logos and brand accessories, identity cards etc., the less said the better.
Can the Commonwealth Games 2010 Volunteer uniforms consisting of polo tops, tracks, T shirts, cap and shoes not be counterfeited by terrorists / insurgents.
Although Hologram is the most effective way to prevent counterfeiting, but in India where terrorists / insurgents use fake currency, how difficult will it be for them to counterfeit holograms? Are all athletes participating in the Commonwealth Games 2010 at New Delhi, supposed experts that they will be able to detect fake identity cards?
Who are the Volunteers for Commonwealth Games 2010?
They are mostly students, working executives and retired people.
What is the incentive for volunteers, except the hype of serving the motherland?
For Volunteers at Commonwealth Games 2010, it will be a place to network with foreigners and maybe network and find a job somewhere.
What prevents terrorists / insurgents from using MICE and 6 Degrees of Separation tactics to glean subtle intelligence on the movement of athletes.
What stops terrorists from cultivating hotel staff, vehicle drivers, private security experts or the state of the art Volunteers at the Commonwealth Games 2010?
How will athletes recognize anybody at all when they are on sightseeing mode at Delhi, India. Will they trust people because they are wearing law enforcement uniforms or volunteer uniforms?
What is the probability that terrorists will not be able to counterfeit law enforcement identity cards or uniforms?
Are 5 star hotels really safe in India as they are made out to be by the supposed security experts?
Are shopping malls really safe as the security experts claim that they are?
Are metros safe? If so, how can collateral damage be avoided in case the terrorists breach it.
Just by talking about disaster management and emergency management and risk management, can the terrorist / insurgent be really stopped? Just by hiring law enforcement security experts or private security vendors, can the terrorists be really stopped?
It is the worst nightmare? I will call it a Low Probability x Hight Impact scenario.
Maybe everything goes well, but WHAT IF?
Who can you really trust?
www.corporaterisks.info
Advisor, Corporate Risks
riskmitigator@yahoo.com
Assistant Professor, MBA Competitive Intelligence & Corporate Warfare program
Paralysis in Competitive Intelligence.
Paralysis in competitive intelligence happens most of the time because of the inability of a competitive intelligence analyst to interpret signals correctly. Most human beings are affected by sensory perception.
What a competitive intelligence analyst needs to be careful about and take into consideration are the following pitfalls which cloud decision making and thereby affect competitive intelligence.
Insight, a rare commodity, can get clouded by the subtle influences of the following thinking and behavioral flaws which affect a competitive intelligence analyst’s ability.
- Ambiguity effect – the avoidance of options for which missing information makes the probability seem “unknown”.
- Anchoring effect – the tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor,” on a past reference or on one trait or piece of information when making decisions.
- Intentional bias – neglect of relevant data when making judgments of a correlation or association.
- Authority bias – the tendency to value an ambiguous stimulus (e.g., an art performance) according to the opinion of someone who is seen as an authority on the topic.
- Availability heuristic – estimating what is more likely by what is more available in memory, which is biased toward vivid, unusual, or emotionally charged examples.
- Availability cascade – a self-reinforcing process in which a collective belief gains more and more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse.
- Belief bias – an effect where someone’s evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion.
- Clustering illusion – the tendency to see patterns where actually none exist.
- Capability bias – The tendency to believe that the closer average performance is to a target, the tighter the distribution of the data set.
- Conjunction fallacy – the tendency to assume that specific conditions are more probable than general ones.
- Disposition effect – the tendency to sell assets that have increased in value but hold assets that have decreased in value.
- Gambler’s fallacy – the tendency to think that future probabilities are altered by past events, when in reality they are unchanged. Results from an erroneous conceptualization of the Law of large numbers.
- Hawthorne effect – the tendency of people to perform or perceive differently when they know that they are being observed.
- Hindsight bias – sometimes called the “I-knew-it-all-along” effect, the inclination to see past events as being predictable.
- Illusory correlation – beliefs that inaccurately suppose a relationship between a certain type of action and an effect.
- Last illusion — the belief that someone must know what is going on. Coined by Brian Eno.
- Ludic fallacy – the analysis of chance-related problems according to the belief that the unstructured randomness found in life resembles the structured randomness found in games.
- Neglect of prior base rates effect – the tendency to neglect known odds when reevaluating odds in light of weak evidence.
- Observer-expectancy effect – when a researcher expects a given result and therefore unconsciously manipulates an experiment or misinterprets data in order to find it.
- Optimism bias – the systematic tendency to be over-optimistic about the outcome of planned actions.
- Ostrich effect – ignoring an obvious (negative) situation.
- Overconfidence effect – excessive confidence in one’s own answers to questions. For example, for certain types of question, answers that people rate as “99% certain” turn out to be wrong 40% of the time.
- Positive outcome bias – a tendency in prediction to overestimate the probability of good things happening to them.
- Pareidolia – a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) is perceived as significant, e.g., seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse.
- Primacy effect – the tendency to weigh initial events more than subsequent events.
- Recency effect – the tendency to weigh recent events more than earlier events.
- Disregard of regression toward the mean – the tendency to expect extreme performance to continue.
- Selection bias – a distortion of evidence or data that arises from the way that the data are collected.
- Stereotyping – expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual.
- Subadditivity effect – the tendency to judge probability of the whole to be less than the probabilities of the parts.
- Subjective validation – perception that something is true if a subject’s belief demands it to be true. Also assigns perceived connections between coincidences.
- Survivorship bias – concentrating on the people or things that “survived” some process and ignoring those that didn’t, or arguing that a strategy is effective given the winners, while ignoring the large amount of losers.
- Telescoping effect – the effect that recent events appear to have occurred more remotely and remote events appear to have occurred more recently.
- Texas sharpshooter fallacy – the fallacy of selecting or adjusting a hypothesis after the data is collected, making it impossible to test the hypothesis fairly. Refers to the concept of firing shots at a barn door, drawing a circle around the best group, and declaring that to be the target.
- Well travelled road effect – underestimation of the duration taken to traverse oft-traveled routes and over-estimate the duration taken to traverse less familiar routes.
- Bandwagon effect – a competitive intelligence analyst may suffer from herd mentality.
- Base rate fallacy – ignoring available statistical data in favor of particulars.
- Bias blind spot – the tendency not to compensate for one’s own cognitive biases.
- Choice-supportive bias – the tendency to remember one’s choices as better than they actually were.
- Confirmation bias – the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.
- Congruence bias – the tendency to test hypotheses exclusively through direct testing, in contrast to tests of possible alternative hypotheses.
- Contrast effect – the enhancement or diminishing of a weight or other measurement when compared with a recently observed contrasting object.
- Déformation professionnelle – the tendency to look at things according to the conventions of one’s own profession, forgetting any broader point of view.
- Distinction bias – the tendency to view two options as more dissimilar when evaluating them simultaneously than when evaluating them separately.
- Experimenter’s or Expectation bias – the tendency for experimenters to believe, certify, and publish data that agree with their expectations for the outcome of an experiment, and to disbelieve, discard, or downgrade the corresponding weightings for data that appear to conflict with those expectations.
- Focusing effect – prediction bias occurring when people place too much importance on one aspect of an event; causes error in accurately predicting the utility of a future outcome.
- Framing – Using an approach or description of the situation or issue that is too narrow. Also framing effect – drawing different conclusions based on how data is presented.
- Hyperbolic discounting – the tendency for people to have a stronger preference for more immediate payoffs relative to later payoffs, where the tendency increases the closer to the present both payoffs are.
- Illusion of control – the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly cannot.
- Impact bias – the tendency for people to overestimate the length or the intensity of the impact of future feeling states.
- Information bias – the tendency to seek information even when it cannot affect action.
- Interloper effect – the tendency to value third party consultation as objective, confirming, and without motive. Also consultation paradox, the conclusion that solutions proposed by existing personnel within an organization are less likely to receive support than from those recruited for that purpose.
- Irrational escalation – the tendency to make irrational decisions based upon rational decisions in the past or to justify actions already taken.
- Mere exposure effect – the tendency for people to express undue liking for things merely because they are familiar with them.
- Moral credential effect – the tendency of a track record of non-prejudice to increase subsequent prejudice.
- Need for Closure – the need to reach a verdict in important matters; to have an answer and to escape the feeling of doubt and uncertainty. The personal context (time or social pressure) might increase this bias.
- Negativity bias – phenomenon by which humans pay more attention to and give more weight to negative than positive experiences or other kinds of information.
- Neglect of probability – the tendency to completely disregard probability when making a decision under uncertainty.
- Normalcy bias – the refusal to plan for, or react to, a disaster which has never happened before.
- Not Invented Here – the tendency to ignore that a product or solution already exists, because its source is seen as an “enemy” or as “inferior”.
- Omission bias – the tendency to judge harmful actions as worse, or less moral, than equally harmful omissions (inactions).
- Outcome bias – the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made.
- Planning fallacy – the tendency to underestimate task-completion times.
- Pseudo certainty effect – the tendency to make risk-averse choices if the expected outcome is positive, but make risk-seeking choices to avoid negative outcomes.
- Reactance – the urge to do the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist a perceived attempt to constrain your freedom of choice.
- Restraint bias – the tendency to overestimate one’s ability to show restraint in the face of temptation.
- Selective perception – the tendency for expectations to affect perception.
- Semmelweis reflex – the tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts an established paradigm.
- Status quo bias – the tendency for people to like things to stay relatively the same .
- Von Restorff effect – the tendency for an item that “stands out like a sore thumb” to be more likely to be remembered than other items.
- Wishful thinking – the formation of beliefs and the making of decisions according to what is pleasing to imagine instead of by appeal to evidence or rationality.
- Zero-risk bias – preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.
- Actor-observer bias – the tendency for explanations of other individuals’ behaviors to overemphasize the influence of their personality and underemphasize the influence of their situation. However, this is coupled with the opposite tendency for the self in that explanations for our own behaviors overemphasize the influence of our situation and underemphasize the influence of our own personality.
- Egocentric bias – occurs when people claim more responsibility for themselves for the results of a joint action than an outside observer would.
- Barnum Effect – the tendency to give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.
- False consensus effect – the tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which others agree with them.
- Fundamental attribution error – the tendency for people to over-emphasize personality-based explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational influences on the same behavior.
- Halo effect – the tendency for a person’s positive or negative traits to “spill over” from one area of their personality to another in others’ perceptions of them.
- Herd instinct – Common tendency to adopt the opinions and follow the behaviors of the majority to feel safer and to avoid conflict.
- Illusion of asymmetric insight – people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers’ knowledge of them.
- Illusion of transparency – people overestimate others’ ability to know them, and they also overestimate their ability to know others.
- Illusory superiority – overestimating one’s desirable qualities, and underestimating undesirable qualities, relative to other people.
- In-group bias – the tendency for people to give preferential treatment to others they perceive to be members of their own groups.
- Just-world phenomenon – the tendency for people to believe that the world is just and therefore people “get what they deserve.”
- Notational bias – a form of cultural bias in which the notational conventions of recording data biases the appearance of that data toward (or away from) the system upon which the notational schema is based.
- Out-group homogeneity bias – individuals see members of their own group as being relatively more varied than members of other groups.
- Projection bias – the tendency to unconsciously assume that others share the same or similar thoughts, beliefs, values, or positions.
- Self-serving bias (also called “behavioral confirmation effect”) – the tendency to claim more responsibility for successes than failures. It may also manifest itself as a tendency for people to evaluate ambiguous information in a way beneficial to their interests.
- Self-fulfilling prophecy – the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or not) confirm existing attitudes.
- System justification – the tendency to defend and bolster the status quo. Existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest.
- Trait ascription bias – the tendency for people to view themselves as relatively variable in terms of personality, behavior and mood while viewing others as much more predictable.
- Ultimate attribution error – Similar to the fundamental attribution error, in this error a person is likely to make an internal attribution to an entire group instead of the individuals within the group.
www.corporaterisks.info
Advisor, Corporate Risks
riskmitigator@yahoo.com
Assistant Professor, MBA Competitive Intelligence & Corporate Warfare program
Extracting and Interpreting Emissions in Competitive intelligence
It is not the competitors organization one faces that is important but the think tank that controls the organization that needs profiling. If one can understand how the competitors think tank functions, one can anticipate how the competitors organization will act and react to ones maneuvers in the market.
One needs to be sharp enough to interpret the subtle emissions that competitors reflexively emit about their innermost thoughts and intentions.
One should never let ones mask down as the competitor is watching to interpret ones emotions as they indulge in role playing to anticipate your intentions and capabilities.
Develop the intuitive ability to penetrate the veil and deception which the competitor creates by intentionally sending out emissions in OSINT for you to read and work on complex scenarios.
Your analysts will always interpret information through their own preconceptions and prejudices, it is unfortunately a failing of a human mind.
If the analyst lacks insight into the complexity of a human mind, one will always remain a prisoner of ones perception. There are so many variables such as political ideology, religious ideology and individual ideology coupled with the class and caste system influences that influence perceptions of the target as well as the analyst. This makes extraction of information by discreet and subtle probe very complex, forget being dumb enough to call or meet the competitors think tank and believe in your ability to extract information.
Analysis is always perception driven. Human beings always wear a veil of illusion. They will never let their guard down and let you get a secret glimpse into their souls. Early in life one learns to be competitive by masking ones true feelings and emotions and learns that communication is never a tool to express emotions but to influence human behavior.
You are sadly mistaken if you consider the competitors think tank to be gullible and retarded as a moron that by your discreet questions, you will be able to extract information. You are able to extract what the think tank wants you to extract and you relish in your ability to extract information.
Intuition always warns when competitors probe through OSINT and this is why OSINT is always doctored to create a rouse. The deliberate murkiness makes extraction of information difficult while using active intelligence tools in competitive intelligence.
It is inherent in the nature of a human being to conceal their thoughts, and thoughts and actions always have a dissonance as the competitors competitive intelligence operators are always scanning the environment to interpret overt as well as subtle emissions. But it is unconsciously that human beings betray their intentions and this is an art which if you have not mastered, you will never be able to interpret signals in the manner you should interpret them.
When you profile people and categorize them into a personality type, have you forgotten that the competitors competitive intelligence operator may intentionally lead you up a garden path because the subject wants you to profile and categorize the subject as a particular personality type.
Never underestimate the intelligence of a human mind and lastly the intelligence of a competitive intelligence operator of the competitor who doctors information for you to play with and lets you derive the cheap thrill of believing that you have superior information extraction capability.
It is at times of crisis that you may believe that the multiple masks which human beings use may be breached. In ordinary human beings it is possible to breach a couple of masks of deception that they wear but breaching the mask of the think tank of a competitor requires a very powerful intuition.
As a competitive intelligence analyst you need to understand that it is the quality of information that is more important than the quantity of information that you harvest.
A competitors think tank will always plant moles and mislead, you think that the competitors organization follows 10 commandments and the Bible and some code of ethics.
The moles planted by the competitor are handled by a very competent handler who is trained in the art of making the organization competitive and you believe that you will be able to penetrate the “veil of illusion” with your state of the art technology.
Human beings leave strong and subtle emissions in OSINT and let you gather and analyze information, but what if the competitors competitive intelligence operator intentionally leaves a paper trail for you to follow?
The competitors competitive intelligence operators are not complacent as the competitor is always profiling you and yet innovating and constantly adapting to outflank and outmaneuver your organization in the corporate battlefield.
Never forget that competitive intelligence is anticipating competitors actions and reactions to your moves.
The competitors competitive intelligence team is as smart as you, if not superior.
www.corporaterisks.info
Advisor, Corporate Risks
riskmitigator@yahoo.com
Assistant Professor, MBA Competitive Intelligence & Corporate Warfare program
Pakastani officials now say there has been some confusion, and that American-born Al Qaeda spokesperson, Adam Gadahn, has not been detained. See: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6261SB20100308.
In an AP article distributed online by CBS news
(March 7, 2010: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/07/world/main6274928.shtml),
Associated Press writers Patrick Quinn and Maamoun Youssef report that American-born Islamic-convert Adam Gadahn has “described Maj. Nidal Hasan as a pioneer who should serve as a role model for other Muslims, especially those serving Western militaries.” Nidal Hasan, as you will recall from recent news is the alleged “Fort Hood shooter” that killed 13 people on the base in a November 5, 2009, shooting in Texas.
Gadahn, who was quoted from a recently released 25-minute video posted on “militant Websites,” said “fighters should target mass transportation systems in the West and also wreak havoc ‘by killing or capturing people in government, industry and the media.’”
It is important to being preparations for what is already underway: a massive call for attack, cyber or otherwise, on anyone in those venues or others. My suggestion is that you read this article and check Corporate Risks for new information as available. Preparations should be made at your homes and offices for a cyber security threat—I had one try last night, for example, but my Norton Security (Symantec products) stopped it and notified me instantly. The hacker tried twice.
It is important to protect this information, not only at work but at home as well. As soon as you “plug” into a LAN at home, be it Wifi or Cable, you have just opened your computer up to the hackers of the world—including those who want information to disrupt your business. Or worse, they want information from your type of business to disrupt the peace and sanctity of the world.
If each of us thinks about it in this way, perhaps we can do our part to protect each other as best we can. If not, then we are leaving our security, our livelihoods and our futures entirely up to the governments and administrations of the world.
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